Think Code AB Blog https://www.thinkcode.se/blog Thoughts and opinions from Think Code AB A Revival for Test First, If We Don't Waste It https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/07/01/a-revival-for-test-first-if-we-dont-waste-it Using a coding assistant might turn out to be the best thing that has happened to Test-Driven Development (TDD) so far. This is the seventh post in my series about coding with an assistant.

For more than twenty years the objection to TDD was always some version of the same thing. No time. Too much typing. We will add the tests later. The assistant removes that objection. It types the test for you in seconds and it does not get bored doing it. On top of that, the path of least resistance with an assistant now runs straight through the test. I made that case in Fitness Functions for an AI Coding Assistant. To get useful work out of the assistant you have to tell it what done looks like, and a description of done that a machine can check is a test. TDD stops being the disciplined choice and becomes the efficient one.

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Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/07/01/a-revival-for-test-first-if-we-dont-waste-it Thomas Sundberg
Fitness Functions for an AI Coding Assistant https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/06/24/fitness-functions-for-an-ai-coding-assistant This is the sixth post in my series about working with an AI coding assistant. The earlier posts covered getting started, observations, rules, results, and communication. This one is about the gap between a rule the assistant might follow and a constraint it cannot get around.

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Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/06/24/fitness-functions-for-an-ai-coding-assistant Thomas Sundberg
Pipe Suggestions Straight to the Clipboard https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/06/15/pipe-suggestions-straight-to-the-clipboard My AI assistant suggests commit messages. For a while I copied each one out of the terminal by hand, selecting the text with the mouse and pasting it into my git client. It works, but selecting text in the terminal drags the line breaks along with it. The terminal wraps the text to fit its width, and those wraps come through as real line breaks in whatever you paste into. Then you have to clean them out.

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Mon, 15 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/06/15/pipe-suggestions-straight-to-the-clipboard Thomas Sundberg
If You Can't Finish Your Sentence, Neither Can Your AI https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/05/03/if-you-cant-finish-your-sentence-neither-can-your-ai This is the fifth post in my series about working with an AI coding assistant. The earlier posts covered getting started, observations, rules, and practical results. This one is about something I keep coming back to: communication.

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Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/05/03/if-you-cant-finish-your-sentence-neither-can-your-ai Thomas Sundberg
An AI Coding Assistant as a Force Multiplier https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/04/23/an-ai-coding-assistant-as-a-force-multiplier This is the fourth post in my series about working with an AI coding assistant. The rules from the previous post are in place. Now I want to talk about the results.

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Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/04/23/an-ai-coding-assistant-as-a-force-multiplier Thomas Sundberg
Spell It Out: Rules for an AI Coding Assistant https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/04/20/spell-it-out-rules-for-an-ai-coding-assistant This is the third post in my series about working with an AI coding assistant. The first two covered getting started and early observations. This one is about what happened when I started writing down the rules.

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Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/04/20/spell-it-out-rules-for-an-ai-coding-assistant Thomas Sundberg
Fast and accurate: testing the same contract two ways https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/04/10/fast-and-accurate-testing-the-same-contract-two-ways A Javalin-based REST server for a Gold Mine game, demonstrating a test architecture that runs the same tests both in-memory and over the network.

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Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/04/10/fast-and-accurate-testing-the-same-contract-two-ways Thomas Sundberg
Two kinds of developers https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/04/08/two-kinds-of-developers I have worked with a lot of developers over the years. Over the years, I have noticed a pattern. Some developers light up when they talk about the internals of a programming language. A new feature in the type system, a clever way to handle concurrency, an elegant pattern they discovered. The technology itself is what drives them.

Other developers are different. They care less about how the language works under the hood. What gets them going is the customer's problem. They want to understand what hurts and build something that makes the pain go away. The programming language is a tool. A means to an end.

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Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/04/08/two-kinds-of-developers Thomas Sundberg
Testing in 2026: more relevant than ever https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/03/22/testing-in-2026-more-relevant-than-ever Coding assistants generate code faster than ever. A feature that used to take a day can be roughed out in hours. The typing is nearly free.

You might wonder why you should still bother with tests. If the assistant can produce code that fast, surely it gets it right. That misses the point entirely. Tests were never about catching typos. They are about defining what the software should do and making sure it keeps doing it.

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Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/03/22/testing-in-2026-more-relevant-than-ever Thomas Sundberg
AI Coding Assistant: More Observations from a Practitioner https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/03/17/ai-coding-assistant-more-observations-from-a-practitioner In February, I wrote about my early experience using an AI assistant for Test-Driven Development, TDD. This is a follow-up. It may become a series, we'll see. A lot has happened in the six weeks since that post, and I have more to say.

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Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.thinkcode.se/blog/2026/03/17/ai-coding-assistant-more-observations-from-a-practitioner Thomas Sundberg