Joben Ilagan

Ph.D. CS, Assistant Professor, and Software Consultant

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

Just as I upgraded to Claude Max 20x, it feels way dumber than it was.

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

Your Claude subscription level will most likely be at least the same in the following months. Build is not a one-time thing as there will be lots of bug fixes, refactoring, and enhancements that are needed.

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

3/ Beta links (free to join):
Kanji: https://t.co/HnQSxVlfKu
Kiku: https://t.co/X91e5EmYvq
Yomu: https://t.co/oMcRPGHN84
If you try it and it annoys you, reply here. That's the kind of feedback I need.

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

2/ Each app has a daily mission + streak. Romaji toggle throughout. Visual mnemonics for kanji. Kana foundation section just added so true beginners have an entry point.

Not trying to replace WaniKani or Anki. These are the gaps they don't cover.

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

Building a Japanese learning suite. Three apps, one account, they share vocabulary data.

🖊 Kanji Mentor — draw kanji by hand, AI grades your strokes
👂 Kiku Mentor — listening practice + any YouTube video becomes an annotated lesson
📖 Yomu Mentor — graded reading with grammar notes, paste any Japanese text
All in open beta on TestFlight. 🧵

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

What’s been working for me so far:
- use ChatGPT Codex and Minimax (monthly plan) on OpenClaw to create exploratory workflows, prototypes or MVPs;
- harden and rearchitect using Claude Code outside; here, there are no restrictions on using the monthly plan
- Tell OpenClaw to use (some of) the hardened apps and scripts created by Claude outside

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

ChatGPT 5.1 seems like a downgraded assistant where you need to be explicit about your instructions. I hate it when it says "Please type <exact phrase stated here> " for it to continue. The older models understood it when I say go, go ahead, proceed, yes, ...

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

X is not about y; it is z—is the new delve.
(I placed the em dash there on purpose.)

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

Claude is getting to be a drag to use even with the Pro account due to messaging limits. And I don’t think my usage patterns have been excessive.

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

@docligot The reality also is that I am now able to recruit graduates otherwise either not interested nor qualified for certain roles without AI.

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

Vibe coding does not necessarily mean hiring fewer people. On the contrary, I can now contract more people who would otherwise be unable to add value to a project.

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

If someone can prototype or automate a task using GenAI, even without formal training, should they be told not to try?

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

AI is putting more pressure on revisiting the whole idea of charging by the hour, and I hope the practice finally goes away.

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

In my recent expense reports, cloud computing is being overshadowed by Claude computing.

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

(First image):
What I thought was hopeless is now possible. More than 10 years ago, we created the communication board Tom Taps Speaks AAC for non-verbal children with autism. We have not been able to update it since it was written in an obsolete programming language called Objective-C.

(Second image):
I let AI read the old project files and images and tried to generate a basic working app using a modern, cross-platform tech stack (Flutter). After 24 hours and $80,I used the @roocode extension on Visual Studio Code to generate this. The underlying model mainly was @AnthropicAI Claude 3.7 Sonnet.

I will continue to migrate/rework (Tom Taps V2) in the coming days.

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

Deploying and maintaining code purely generated by AI is not for the faint of heart. You don’t know at what point you may encounter a database backup and restoration issue. I had several migration and upgrade scares over the past few days. Any tips on dealing with this (aside from full backups of the database) are welcome. Having several staging areas before prod seems an absolute must.

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

After four days and about $120 worth of @AnthropicAI Claude 3.7 credits, Code generation output from Roo Code yielded a first version of a Lean Canvas Mentor, largely based on the #LeanCanvas by @ashmaurya . The intent is to have our student startup founders go through this tool and record pivots along the way. We are considering making this open source--either the extracted prompt or the generated code (or both).

[Joben Ilagan @jilagan]

@docligot Sorry to hear this.