BurntAI Blog

After three decades in IT, I’ve gone from racking servers to building with AI. I’m not writing the code — the machine is — but I test, tweak, and make sure nothing catastrophic slips through. Every prompt feels like a roll of the dice: did I get it right, or will it break something? I’m not a coder, but this AI journey is making me one. And yes — I’m glad there’s a dev site to test in first.

Building BurntAI.com with AI: The Back-and-Forth Battle In my first post, I shared how I went from decades in IT to diving headfirst into building BurntAI.com. Now I want to talk about how I’ve been building it — and the challenges that come with working alongside AI as your coding partner.

My Go-To: Claude from Anthropic From the start, Claude has been my main co-developer. I like it because its default style is simple: I ask for something, and it just makes the code. No overexplaining, no “are you sure you want to do that?” — just code.

The process looks like this:

I describe the feature I want.

Claude writes the HTML, CSS, or JavaScript.

I run it.

Something breaks.

I paste the error back in.

Claude fixes it.

It’s a loop that feels like real pair programming — fast, iterative, and creative.

Hitting the Context Limit Wall The big frustration? Claude’s maximum length limit.

I’ll be halfway through solving a complicated bug, deep into a multi-file feature… and suddenly, it’s out of room. Conversation over. No more replies. All the context — gone.

That means I have to:

Start a new chat.

Re-explain the project and the bug.

Paste only the necessary code (to save space).

Hope it picks up where we left off.

Sometimes it does. Sometimes I get a totally different approach that I have to untangle.

Trying Other AI Platforms I’ve also worked with Gemini and Perplexity. They’re smart, but getting them to match Claude’s “just make the code” flow takes careful prompting. Some AI tools want to explain every step in detail. Others like to redesign my feature completely.

They’re great for fresh ideas and code reviews — but when I just need the code, Claude still wins.

Lessons Learned Along the Way AI is an amazing co-developer — but not a perfect one.

Every AI platform has its own “personality.”

Prompt engineering matters just as much as coding skills.

Always save your work — AI’s memory can vanish in an instant.

BurntAI.com is still evolving. I’m adding new features, fixing bugs, and finding more easter eggs to hide. And while AI sometimes feels like an unreliable genius, I wouldn’t have been able to build this site without it.

Jeff

My First Post: From IT Engineer to AI Web Creator For over 30 years, I’ve been deep in the world of IT — working as a LAN Administrator, Systems Administrator, and Systems Engineer. My toolkit was filled with PowerShell scripts, batch files, and all kinds of automation. But one thing I never really touched? Building websites and web apps.

That changed in the last six months.

With the rapid growth of AI tools, I saw something shift — suddenly, the skills I had in automation and scripting could be supercharged. AI wasn’t just a helper; it was a creative partner. It could take my technical know-how and help me build things I’d never tackled before.

Then my six-month contract ended. I found myself unemployed.

Instead of jumping straight back into the job hunt, I went heads down into a project I’ve come to love: BurntAI.com.

It’s a post-apocalyptic-themed AI hub packed with interactive experiments, real-time AI status monitoring, quirky games, and hidden easter eggs. I’ve been using Anthropic’s Claude as my main coding partner — because Claude tends to just make the code — with Gemini and Perplexity filling in when I need a second opinion.

The process is a mix of rapid creation and frustrating roadblocks. Claude’s great until it hits the context length limit right in the middle of solving a tricky problem. Then it’s back to re-explaining, breaking the problem into smaller chunks, and pushing forward.

But here’s the thing: Even with those limits, I can build more now than I ever could before. The speed, the creativity, the sheer ability to take an idea from my head to something people can click on — it’s addictive.

I’ve discovered something important: I’m not just an IT engineer anymore. I’m a creator.

And this is only the beginning.

Jeff