Why Old Dog, New Flex Exists

The Moment That Forced the Question

This really started when AI stopped being optional.

At first, it was just another thing to learn — another tool added to the stack. That’s normal in this industry. Learning has always been part of the job.

Then the tone changed.

AI wasn’t just interesting anymore. It became expected. Encouraged by leadership. Discussed in ways that weren’t always subtle. And for the first time in a long career of adapting, I felt something new creep in: anxiety.

Not because I didn’t want to learn it — but because this was the first “tool” that came bundled with the quiet suggestion that it might eventually replace me.

Among my peers, reactions split fast. For some, AI became a bad word. For others, it became the holy grail. As usual, I suspected the truth lived somewhere in the middle.

So I dug in — not just because I was told to, but because I needed to understand what was actually happening.

I tried “vibe coding,” because that was the fashion at the time. It was painful. Outputs were broken out of the gate, logic was shallow, and everything required more fixing than expected. This was the thing supposedly coming for my job, and yet I was spending half my time correcting it.

That frustration almost made me walk away.

But I’d seen enough to recognize something else hiding underneath the hype: potential. Not a replacement — a partner. A kind of virtual pair programmer, if I learned how to work with it properly.

That’s when the shift happened.

I stopped treating AI like a mind reader and started treating it like a junior engineer. I became more explicit. More intentional. I learned about prompt engineering and context engineering — not as buzzwords, but as communication disciplines.

And suddenly, things improved.

It wasn’t that the AI got smarter.
It was that I got clearer.

It reminded me of the old classroom exercise where you give instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and everything goes wrong because you assumed shared understanding. We do that constantly — with people, with systems, and now with machines.

This site exists because that realization didn’t just change how I used AI.
It changed how I thought about learning, communication, and responsibility in modern software work.

What I’m Pushing Back Against

I’m pushing back against complacency — especially the quiet kind that disguises itself as experience.

The version that says, “This is how we’ve always done it,” as if that sentence has ever stopped the ground from moving.

I’m also pushing back against false binaries:

• AI will save us or destroy us
• Speed is everything or progress is dead
• Adapt or die or resist at all costs

None of those extremes are useful.

This isn’t about AI absolutism or speed worship. It’s about acknowledging that change is happening whether we like it or not — and choosing to engage with it thoughtfully instead of fearfully or blindly.

Growth requires discomfort. So does staying relevant. Pretending otherwise just delays the reckoning.

The Line I’m Drawing

Here’s the line I’m drawing:

I will adapt — but not abdicate.

I’ll use powerful tools — but I won’t surrender judgment.
I’ll move faster — but not at the expense of responsibility.
I’ll keep learning — without pretending experience is a liability.

Old Dog, New Flex is where I work through those tradeoffs in public.
Not to perform certainty — but to practice clarity.

Who This Is For (and Who It Isn’t)

This is for:

• experienced developers who feel the ground shifting
• builders who still care about correctness and consequences
• people who want to stay useful without chasing every trend

This is not for:

• hype chasers
• tool evangelists
• people looking for shortcuts to expertise
• anyone convinced the future requires abandoning judgment

If you’re looking for guarantees or easy answers, you won’t find them here.

If you’re willing to think carefully and adapt honestly, you probably will.

The Long Game

I want this to become a body of work that holds up after the noise fades.

A record of how one experienced engineer navigated a period of real change without panic, denial, or surrender. A place where learning is documented honestly — including the missteps.

Over time, I hope this becomes:

• useful to people earlier in their careers
• familiar to people later in theirs
• and a reminder that progress doesn’t require erasing who you are

I’m not here because I’ve stopped learning.
I’m here because I haven’t.

After all, I’m living proof that you can teach an old dog new tricks.