chris

Quick one for anyone new here. I'm Chris. Day job, two kids, building before dawn and after bedtime with Grok and Codex. Between now and Christmas I'm sharing what works, what flops, and the real numbers on the way to 5,000. 1,449 today. Follow along if that sounds like your kind of chaos.

Building my first iOS app has introduced me to an entirely new collection of things I didn't know I didn't know. App signing. Provisioning. TestFlight. Content delivery. Offline behaviour. I thought designing the actual app would be the complicated part. Now for a Friday pint.

Last post flopped, so bringing in the big guns. Lola says hi.

My most-seen coffee post this week wasn't my most-replied one. How do you take your coffee: 753 impressions, 15 replies. Asking what people are working on: 578, 24 replies. Building or easing in: 540, 18 replies. How's everyone doing: 503, 19 replies. One word for your week so far: 296, 7 replies. Easy questions get seen. Asking about people's work gets them talking. What's the question that always gets you replies?

Top 10 people I’ve loved talking with on X this week: @therichardbrien @Bagdex @mansfieldrv6 @PadraigOraghail @zenok__ @sudoaptaj @Compilethings @TheFoundersAsc @oimatrixioYT @IlyaPion If you don’t follow them, follow them.

GM ☕ Friday, working from home. No Outlook in 12 hours, and now SharePoint is down. Should be a quiet day! Gym done. Now coffee, then a proper walk with Lola before the laptop opens. What are you shipping before the weekend?

Thursday on X, by the numbers: 📝 5 posts 💬 73 replies sent 👀 8,531 impressions ❤️ 86 likes 🗨️ 64 replies back 📈 1,581 → 1,611 followers (+30) Best day this week for follows, still well short of the pace I want. Tried today: Grok vs Codex week 1. Changing tomorrow: fewer low-value replies, more time on the top-10 list and build posts.

Grok vs Codex, week 1. Task: write the landing page for my curated coffee-break app. Grok: "One 15-minute piece a day." Clear, but it turned the app into a reading quota. Codex: went back to the line I'd already liked, made the positioning call explicit, and added real teasers from the first edition. Winner: Codex. Grok described the app. Codex made the page feel like a preview of it. One real task a week, keeping score. What should I make them fight over next week?

Building in public, by the numbers: Yesterday morning on my curated coffee-break app: 6 commits. 23 automated tests passing. iOS build green. It now works fully offline, remembers where you got to, and has a tight visual style that looks sick in dark mode. This morning I tidied up my website: 1 project archived. 1 shelved for good. 1 front and centre. Next: getting the app to refresh its content without needing to update.

Thanks for the reset, @grok Bot! 🙏 Back to letting my bots do all the research while I ship.

GM ☕ Happy Thursday! It’s a bloody cold here this morning. Hope my UK friends are staying warm. London today, so another commute-build session, I reckon. Coffee first. One word for your week so far?

Wednesday on X, by the numbers: 📝 6 posts 💬 102 replies sent 👀 8,542 impressions ❤️ 166 likes 🗨️ 99 replies back 📈 1,568 → 1,583 followers (+15) Build posts aren't pulling yet, and +15 is well short of the pace I need. Tried today: build posts from my commute and an empty-screen bug fix, instead of replying all day. Changing tomorrow: end every build post with an engaging question.

Fixed a bug in my curated coffee-break app today. Finish everything and the app showed a "you're caught up" screen that looked completely empty. Felt broken, not done. Fix: finished pieces now move to a separate Re-read archive. The main screen only shows what's still unread. Empty states are features too. When did you last check yours?

Shipped a commit from my commute this morning. Updated two pieces in the curated coffee-break iOS app, tidied the bits that sit on every screen, and put up a static page on Cloudflare. No Mac. Just a commute and an Omarchy laptop. Do you ship from the road?

Lukewarm take: the best dev setup is the one you actually ship from. Mine: Grok and Codex arguing with each other, Cursor doing the actual work, Grok Bots doing the research. All from a Omarchy laptop. What's yours?

GM ☕ Wednesday. Hump day. Coffee first, then into London again. Actually opening the laptop and building today, instead of replying all day. What are you working on?