Precision in Words, Precision in Code: The Power of Writing in Modern Development

I’ve always found it advantageous to enjoy writing—yes, even documentation writing. It’s one of those foundational skills that doesn’t just make you a better developer; it makes you a better communicator, collaborator, and problem solver. In my experience, being able to articulate ideas, requirements, or solutions in written form isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a superpower.

Fast forward to today, and the value of this skill has grown exponentially. Why? Because the world of software development is no longer confined to our IDEs or command lines. With the advent of tools like Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, TabNine, and Replit Ghostwriter, we’ve entered an era where your ability to write clearly and concisely isn’t just a productivity hack—it’s a core part of how we develop software.

Writing as the Bridge Between Ideas and Implementation

Every time you use ChatGPT to brainstorm API designs, or lean on Copilot to generate boilerplate code, you’re engaging in a collaborative act that requires clear articulation of your goals. Tools like these don’t “read your mind” (at least, not yet, and seem prudent they don’t!). They depend on your ability to communicate requirements effectively—whether that’s describing a function’s purpose, outlining a system’s architecture, or debugging a thorny issue.

Let’s break it down:

  • Problem Definition: Writing forces you to clarify what you’re solving. “Write me a REST API that does X” only works when X is well-defined. If you’re vague, the AI’s output will be vague too.
  • Code Refinement: With tools like Copilot, you can guide its suggestions by writing meaningful comments or even inline documentation. The better you describe your intention, the more useful its suggestions.
  • Collaboration: When sharing prompts, workflows, or generated code with teammates, clear writing makes the difference between helpful and confusing.

This isn’t just about documentation anymore; it’s about precision and intent.

Continue reading “Precision in Words, Precision in Code: The Power of Writing in Modern Development” →

A Successful Deploy to Vercel + Adding More Auth & Login Features to The Web Interface (Plus an Error!)

In the last few posts I knocked out a slew of initial work. Much of it was just to get things up and running and make sure the database was live, the site was live, and that there was a good connection between the two. I did this by building the first basic login page with a dashboard that just shows that the user is logged in, along with a few pages to display general static content. That can be found in:

  1. Building “Adron’s Core Platform”: Starting a React App on Vercel
  2. Getting a Vercel PostgreSQL Database and Basic Authentication Operational
  3. The Confederacy of Errors Starting With Next Auth; Error, Error, npm ERR!

The tasks I’ll accomplish in the following post:

  1. I want a horizontal menu across the top that will link to the dashboard, login, and about page.
  2. I want an account creation page.
  3. I want to make sure that I set things up for the post-login action to be a redirect to the dashboard page.

Adding a Horizontal Menu

For this menu I’m going to add a div with links, assign it as a flex space (css), and add the pertinent links. The changed ./src/app/components/Navigation.tsx with changes looks like this now.

Continue reading “A Successful Deploy to Vercel + Adding More Auth & Login Features to The Web Interface (Plus an Error!)” →

The Confederacy of Errors Starting With Next Auth; Error, Error, npm ERR!

In the interim while I was getting to the next stage of this app, I ran into (what was I doing? 🤷🏼‍♂️) this error.

npm ERR! code ERESOLVE
npm ERR! ERESOLVE could not resolve
npm ERR!
npm ERR! While resolving: next-auth@4.24.10
npm ERR! Found: react@19.0.0-rc-66855b96-20241106
npm ERR! node_modules/react
npm ERR!   react@"19.0.0-rc-66855b96-20241106" from the root project
npm ERR!   peer react@"^18.2.0 || 19.0.0-rc-66855b96-20241106" from next@15.0.3
npm ERR!   node_modules/next
npm ERR!     next@"15.0.3" from the root project
npm ERR!     peer next@"^12.2.5 || ^13 || ^14 || ^15" from next-auth@4.24.10
npm ERR!     node_modules/next-auth
npm ERR!       next-auth@"^4.24.10" from the root project
npm ERR!   2 more (react-dom, styled-jsx)
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Could not resolve dependency:
npm ERR! peer react@"^17.0.2 || ^18" from next-auth@4.24.10
npm ERR! node_modules/next-auth
npm ERR!   next-auth@"^4.24.10" from the root project
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Conflicting peer dependency: react@18.3.1
npm ERR! node_modules/react
npm ERR!   peer react@"^17.0.2 || ^18" from next-auth@4.24.10
npm ERR!   node_modules/next-auth
npm ERR!     next-auth@"^4.24.10" from the root project
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Fix the upstream dependency conflict, or retry
npm ERR! this command with --force or --legacy-peer-deps
npm ERR! to accept an incorrect (and potentially broken) dependency resolution.

As with these dependency issue errors I was getting, which seems to be somewhat common with React these days (or maybe just most of web development!), I went about fixing it with the following steps.

First I removed the existing next-auth installation.

npm uninstall next-auth

Next I installed the beta version of next auth that supports Next.js 15 and React 19 (yes, I RTFMed (i.e. Read The Fucking Manual) a bit and read some other things to finally get to that conclusion).

Continue reading “The Confederacy of Errors Starting With Next Auth; Error, Error, npm ERR!” →

Getting a Vercel PostgreSQL Database and Basic Authentication Operational

Quick links to all posts in the series and related at end of this post.

In the last post I’ve detailed getting started with setup of a basic React App using Next.js and deploying it to Vercel using their respective command line tooling. That post is Building “Adron’s Core Platform”: Starting a React App on Vercel.

Database Time – Getting a PostgreSQL Database

First, I setup the database in Vercel. Navigate to Storage.

Next I clicked on “Create” next to the Neon option.

The next prompt form will appear. I went with PostgreSQL (Neon) database, as shown, then the closest region (mine is Portland).

Continue reading “Getting a Vercel PostgreSQL Database and Basic Authentication Operational” →

Building “Adron’s Core Platform”: Starting a React App on Vercel

Quick links to all posts in the series and related at end of this post.

There have been a number of changes in my Collector’s Tune Tracker endeavor since I wrote up the first posts for the effort with: Building a Multi-Tenant Music Collector’s Database, Starting a New Project – Let’s Choose the Tech, and Software Development: Getting Started by Getting Organized. This is a continuation of that effort. I’ll go into the differences in a later post about those first posts and how I got to this point here today. But for this post specifically, and the next few, I’ll be focusing on getting a project started with React and Vercel.

I’ll write these following an approach that is based in the following:

  • Suffice to say, I’m a bit rusty with my React.
  • I’m completely unfamiliar with Vercel. In these posts that’s about to change however.

There are also a few prerequisites. I’m working through this on an M1 Mac, using iTerm, and largely Visual Studio Code. That and a whole lot of documentation. The following are some other prerequisites that would help if you want to follow along with what I’m going to build.

Prerequisites

Rolling Into Things

Right off, let’s get the project started with the ole npx. The steps I went through involve the following – I just added comments inline to describe what I did or what setting options I went with for prompts.

Continue reading “Building “Adron’s Core Platform”: Starting a React App on Vercel” →