WEBVTT

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I built this thing because there was a gap. Not

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out there in the market, but in my own head.

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Up top, there's this book that electricians carry

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around called The Ugly's Electrical Reference.

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It's this beat -up, pocket -sized thing. Looks

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like it survived the jobsite fire. And it's got

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wire gauges, conduit fill tables, motor formulas,

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code references, just about everything that an

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electrician would need in one ugly little package.

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I kept waiting for the networking equivalent

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to show up. And so far, it hasn't. So I made

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one myself. Sort of. This is me talking. through

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how I vibe coded my way into a networking reference

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guide. Why I needed it to learn and why I genuinely

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don't care if it makes a few people a little

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upset. Okay, so let's do a quick little background

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on this. I'm a broadcast network engineer which

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means I came up through the audio and video side

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of things. Transmitters, signal chains, routing,

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all that. The IP networking piece came later

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and it's been a bit of a self -directed education

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ever since. And I want to be real with you for

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a second. I work alongside network engineers

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who run absolute circles around me. I'll ask

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a question and someone rattles off OSPF neighbor

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state from memory while I'm still trying to remember

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which layer routing lives on. I came from the

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field. I know some things. I know enough to be

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useful. enough to be dangerous and just barely

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enough to know what I don't know yet. The way

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I learn is by doing, by repetition, by getting

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in there, breaking something, fixing it, and

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doing it again until it sticks. That works great

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when I'm hands -on, but when I'm in the middle

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of something and I just need to remember the

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command to pull a running config off of a switch.

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I can't exactly stop and teach a search engine

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or an AI bot how to understand my question. I

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just, I need the answer in about four seconds

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and I need, you know, and then I need to get

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back to what I was doing. And here's the honest

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thing about learning on the job in this kind

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of role. When you've got a brain that doesn't

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love sitting still to put it gently you end up

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with 18 browser tabs open half a youtube video

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a cisco documentation page you don't fully understand

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and then you go make coffee and forget what you

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were even looking for in the first place sound

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familiar no cool just me all right i needed something

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I could actually use while I was working. Not

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a textbook, not a 400 page PDF. Something fast,

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searchable, mine. Like uglies. But for the networking

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concepts I was actively bumping into on the job.

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The stuff my co -workers already had in their

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heads that I'm still building toward. I'm still

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learning. That wasn't it. There wasn't anything

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like that So I decided to build one and I was

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gonna let an AI do most of the heavy lifting

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If you haven't heard that the term Vibe coding

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it's basically the practice of building software

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by describing what you want and plain language

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to AI and You know irate, you know going through

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it in until it works without necessarily writing

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every line yourself. You're more of an architect

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and the tastemaker than the person banging out

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all the syntax. And look, I want to be upfront.

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I'm not a developer. I can read some code. I

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can edit it. I've written enough scripts over

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the years to be dangerous, but sitting down and

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building a full web app from scratch, that's

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not where I was going to spend my weekend. So

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I put the machine to work. The idea was simple,

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a locally hosted single page web app. Nothing

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fancy, no logins, no cloud dependencies, runs

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right off of my laptop or a little local Nginx

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server. in a dark theme because I'm not a monster.

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I can't do light mode. A sidebar with categories,

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a search bar I can actually hit fast, and a collection

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of tools and references, content that would cover

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the stuff I kept having to look up all the time,

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especially subnet math. Port numbers. The OSI

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model in plain English for someone who's a dummy

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like me Wireshark filters Cisco iOS commands

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the the things that when you're deep and troubles

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deep within a You know a troubleshooting session

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at 11 o 'clock at night trying to figure out

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why your AES 67 stream is dropping packets you

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just need it right there and quickly Here's what

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I didn't expect The part that took the most work

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wasn't the code, it was figuring out what I actually

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wanted to know or needed to know. When you're

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writing prompts to generate content for a reference

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guide, you have to be pretty specific. Add a

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section about VLANs gives you something generic,

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but add a reference section that explains VLANs

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in plain English, includes a config example for

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a Cisco iOS switch, and shows the most common

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mistakes people make, that gives you something

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you might actually reach for at 11 p .m. So,

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in a weird way, building this thing forced me

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to inventory my own knowledge gaps. Every section

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I added was basically me saying, here's a topic

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I understand at about 60%. Help me get to, say,

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80%. And the act of prompting for it, reviewing

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the output, editing it to match the way I actually

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talk and think about things, well, that stuck.

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Now, I'm not saying AI made me smarter, I'm saying

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the process of building a thing makes you learn

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the thing. The AI was just a power tool I was

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using. The app ended up with about 40 tools and

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reference sections, calculators, Cisco config

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generators, Wireshark filter builders, broadcast

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specific stuff like Studio Hub pinouts, and PTP

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IEEE 1588 filters because that's the world I

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live in. Things I actually needed, not a comprehensive

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networking textbook, but my comprehensive networking

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reference guide built by someone who's still

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learning it for someone who's still learning

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it now let's let's talk about focus for a second

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i said earlier that i struggle with focus and

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i think that's actually at the core of why this

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tool exists in the first place generic Documentation

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is not built for people who lose the thread easily

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It's built for people who already know roughly

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what they're looking for and just need the specifics

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the details if you're Someone who reads three

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sentences and then your brain goes okay, but

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what about the other thing and You're suddenly

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four links deep and have no idea where you started

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standard docs for people like me, it's a trap.

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And the AI and Google problem is real. Look,

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I like both of those things. And in IT, you use

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Google a lot. They're useful, but when I'm standing

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in front of a switch and I need to know the exact

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syntax for show running dash config, I do not,

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I don't want To type a paragraph into a chat

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box and wait for a response I don't want three

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blue links and a featured snippet. I want my

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thing My way already organized the way my brain

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works Ready to go and one keystroke What I needed

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was a tool that was narrow on purpose a Tool

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that said Here's the things relevant to your

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job organized the way your brain actually navigates

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with a search bar you can hit in under a second

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Control K by the way muscle memory in like two

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days no rabbit holes no adjacent links pulling

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you sideways just the answer to the question

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you actually asked and then Next time I need

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that same command And the time after that, I've

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got it now. That's the repetition part. That's

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how it eventually moves from the app into my

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head. That brain, that squishy thing up top,

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where it belongs. Hi Zach, you wanna join my

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podcast? No? You're just gonna stand there in

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the door and look at me? Okay. Don't eat your

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brother, please or the dogs That's what ugly's

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guide does for electricians It doesn't try to

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be the NEC codebook It tries to be the thing

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you reach for when you're standing in a and a

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panel room And you just need to confirm a number

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And when you're the person in the room who came

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up through the field and is Still struggling

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to catch up that fast focus reference matters

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more than it probably does for someone who Already

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already has all of this stuff memorized now Here's

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the part that complicates the whole story my

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oldest He's just anti AI Full stop he's still

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standing by the door. No, I think he left He

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doesn't like the idea of it. He doesn't trust

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where it's going, and he definitely isn't thrilled

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that I used it for this project at all. From

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his perspective, the fact that I leaned on AI

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to help build a networking reference tool is

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part of a bigger problem, not some clever shortcut

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his dad found. And I know he's not alone. If

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this ever makes it into a comment section somewhere,

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on Reddit probably, I can already hear the the

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complaints. This is how the world ends. Nobody

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learns the fundamentals anymore. Everyone's outsourcing

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their brain. We're doomed. All because I vibe

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coded a little local network cheat sheet to help

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my very human, very distracted brain remember

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how to show a running config on a switch at 11

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o 'clock at night. To those people, all I can

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say is I don't give two shits. Because this isn't

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a product launch, it's not a SaaS, it's not a

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course, it's not ten times your networking skills

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with my AI -powered toolkit. It's a weird, custom,

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slightly janky tool I built for me to bridge

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the gap between the engineer I am right now and

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the engineers I work with who can rattle off

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configs from memory without second -guessing

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without blinking like you know knowing it like

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the back of your hand I Learned by doing by repetition

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by seeing the command using it seeing it again

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and eventually not needing to look I'm starting

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to memorize some of this stuff. It's just it.

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You know it takes time This app is just the in

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-between layer, it's the It's the training wheels.

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It's the thing that lets me stay in the in the

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work instead of getting lost in search results

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every time I blank on some config or a flag I

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need to add to something. If that offends your

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sense of technological purity, that's fine. You

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don't have to touch it. You don't have to use

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it. But I'm going to keep using every tool available

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to me, including Yeah, AI To get better at the

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job. I actually do in the real world. It's a

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tool and if that looks like the end of days from

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the outside Maybe that says more about the the

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discourse than it does about what's actually

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happening on my screen late at night If you've

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got a knowledge domain your actively working

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and still learning. And especially if you're

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surrounded by people who already know it better

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than you. You don't have to wait for someone

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to hand you the right resource. You can build

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it yourself now, even if building it yourself

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means describing it to an AI bot until something

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useful comes out of the other side. You don't

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have to be a developer. You don't have to know

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what you need. Be willing to describe it clearly.

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And even if you can't describe it clearly, dump

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all your thoughts in there and tell it to organize

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this and then use that to build off the next

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step. It's useful. And be willing to edit what

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comes back until it actually sounds and feels

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useful to you and makes sense. The version I'm

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running is live at tools .tylerwoodward .me.

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It's up to about 40 something tools and I keep

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adding things. Every time I hit a topic I have

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to stop and look up or someone at work says something

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and I go home and realize I kind of only half

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understood what the hell they were talking about.

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I come back and add a section for it. It's a

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record of my own learning, I guess, honestly.

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Which is a weird thing to say about a web page,

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but here we are, you know. If I ever do a deeper

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dive episode on this, I want to dig into broadcast

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specific networking pieces. You know, AES67,

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NMOS, PTP, because that's the corner of IP networking

00:17:04.509 --> 00:17:08.089
that doesn't get nearly enough plain language

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coverage. For now, this little vibe -coded cheat

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sheet is my version of Uglies. It fits my brain

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and that's enough for me. If you want to follow

00:17:21.450 --> 00:17:24.430
me for more stuff at TylerWoodward .me on Instagram

00:17:24.430 --> 00:17:26.390
and threads, you can also visit TylerWoodward

00:17:26.390 --> 00:17:29.750
.me for all the past episodes, show notes, links

00:17:29.750 --> 00:17:32.049
to all the various things and to support the

00:17:32.049 --> 00:17:35.230
podcast if you feel so inclined. You can also

00:17:35.230 --> 00:17:38.289
rate and review the show. I keep hearing that

00:17:38.289 --> 00:17:40.690
apparently works and helps things. I don't know.

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I've got three five star reviews on Apple Podcasts

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if you want to add to it. Cool. If not, well,

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thanks for listening anyways if you made it this

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far. I'll catch you next week.