"I've changed my mind on AI coding" – Adam Wathan (creator of Tailwind)

Justin Jackson: Adam, is there other ways you're using it? This is actually the first time I've talked I've heard you talk about using AI at all. I I couldn't I didn't know if you were, like, for it or against it. Adam Wathan: I used to be more skeptical than I am now. And I think the thing for me is I was seeing everyone talk about, like, one shotting things and, like, vibe coding things. And to me, that feels like bullshit and is just not not interesting. To me, it felt like, okay. I like programming.

Like, why would I wanna not program? But when especially when the agent mode stuff came out, I think I started to see how it's more useful. Because I forced myself to download Cursor and just try to basically build an entire project, which was like this this course platform template that we released not too long ago. Yeah. So it's like a Next.

Js website that's, like, pretty dynamic and does a bunch of different things. And I just forced myself to build the entire thing without typing any code and just making the computer type the code for me just to really, like, throw myself in the deep end and learn, like, okay. You know? Because in my head, I was like, okay. Well, if I have to tell them exactly what to do, isn't it just faster to do it myself? And it turns out, no. It's still not faster to do it yourself. Brian Casel: Like, just the fact that it can it can build multiple files.

Adam Wathan: Yeah. And you can what it feels like is it feels like having your feet up on the desk pair programming with someone next to you that you can just, like, talk to like a human being that understands what you want them to do and they do it. You know? Brian Casel: Yeah. And and also, like, there's a lot of the skeptics will say, like, oh, but it's just gonna spit back, like like, code slop that I can't use. Adam Wathan: Yeah. Then you're not being specific enough with what you're asking it to do. Justin Jackson: So did you have to babysit it at all? Like Adam Wathan: Yeah. Like, extremely, honestly, but not not

in a it's still faster, you know? Brian Casel: You're you're still approving every Adam Wathan: Yeah. Brian Casel: Page and every change. So you're so experienced developers can read the code that it Yeah. That it spits back and you can improve it. But the other thing is that, like, this stuff is improving so fast. I mean, I'm using today, I'm using mostly Claude Sonnet four. Even 3.7 was so much better than the models from, like, six months ago. Justin Jackson: Mhmm. Brian Casel: Like, it's it's not only better at, like, just

programming and, like, and just, like, knowing, like, the like, the Rails conventions and everything, and and it's also better at reading my project. Mhmm. And like, the when it when it creates when it generates new code, it first reads my code base and understands how I've implemented certain features in other areas and then implements based on that. Like, it it it is really good at, like, adapting. And then you can take it to the next level. Like, you can have, like, a day one with Cursor, like, just

fresh install Cursor, try it out. But once you're using it for six, twelve months, now you're getting into, like, Cursor rules. Yeah. Now you Adam Wathan: really started doing that on the very first day. Basically, anytime I found myself correcting something that it did, I added it to a rules file to make sure I never had to ask it to do that again. So just like little opinions in, like, our tailwind projects. If it used, like, a bottom margin, I always use top margins instead. So add it to the rules file. Don't use bottom margins unless you're doing this. Or when I ask you to, like like, a common thing that I need to do, like, a

workflow so I guess, like, here's the other thing that I I kind of became acutely aware of when I started using these workflows is just like how much of the program I do is not programming. It's just like grunt work. There's a it's like 90% grunt work. So Steve has an icon in Figma. I need to take that icon, bring it into my project. I need to optimize the SVG so it's not big. I need to convert it into a React component. I need to add props to it so that I can add classes to it when I'm using it. And the workflow for me has