5 Quick Links for Devs: Week 5, 2026

January 27, 2026 · Jacob E. Dawson

Your App Subscription Is Now My Weekend Project

There's been a lot of discussion about the future of software recently, and what this might mean for SaaS. While I don't think that we will necessarily be able to generate fully-featured apps that can compete with massive incumbents like Salesforce or Adobe Illustrator any time soon, for smaller "niche" applications that cater to individual needs, I think we're a lot closer to being able to just ask a frontier model to make a custom version. Roberto Selbach is already following this path, vibecoding his own versions of subscription software like Loom.

Related: SaaS is Dead!

A Software Library with No Code

Leading on from the previous post, Drew Breunig takes things a step further by suggesting that we may no longer even need libraries, when we can just have our models generate utilities in any language we want on call. While it's a little tongue-in-cheek ("a relative time formatting library that contains no code"), for quite a lot of smaller utilities we may be getting to the point where it's easier to ask our models to create a new set of custom utils rather than import e.g. lodash or useHooks. Of course, for a lot of open source software the utility often isn't just in the code itself but the documentation, tests, and confidence that the code has been battle tested. Still, something to ponder while the the progress of coding LLMs continues to accelerate.

The Hidden Engineering of Runways

Ok, we need a break from agentic coding for a second. I loved this exploration of the considerations and planning that go into building an airport runway, it's filled with details that I never would have imagined, like the length of a runway having to be adjusted at higher elevation due to the lower density of air and corresponding higher required takeoff speeds.

Reflections of a Developer on LLMs in January 2026

Robin Moffat does the thing, sharing his take on the state of LLMs and what it means for the future of software development. It really is the big topic of the moment, so I'll continue to share as many of these takes as I can if I feel they add some nuance or value. For senior developers, Rmoff leans into the 'junior developer' analogy: basically thinking of the LLM as an eager, tireless junior developer working for you. While I've seen them output some incredibly good code, they also still have the tendency to overcomplicate, overabstract or unthinkingly bolt down the wrong path, and it's still our job to direct them, review their output and ensure that we provide them with as much detail and context as possible. With that in mind, imo the sky's the limit.

Make.ts

Recently for side projects I've been using Makefiles a lot for bundling shell commands for build automation, as they can wrap up a lot of init instructions for separate services and allow you to run them in one go, alongside adding in environment variables and calling libraries along the way. Here Alex Klodov discusses how he uses a typescript file for interactive scripting, with the benefit of cleaner syntax, making it a nice middle ground between having to type a lot of instructions into the terminal and writing formal automation scripts.

Related: Learn Makefiles