If AI Helps You Learn Faster Is It Cheating?

I finally stopped waiting for the “Ugly’s Electrical Reference” of networking and built my own. When you’re standing in front of a switch at 11 p.m. and you need the exact Cisco IOS command, a clean Wireshark filter, or a subnet answer right now, generic documentation and endless search results are a trap. I wanted something fast, narrow on purpose, and organized the way my brain actually works.

I’m a broadcast network engineer who came up through audio, video, transmitters, and signal chains, then had to learn IP networking later while working alongside engineers who can recall protocols and configs from memory. So I vibe coded a locally hosted single-page web app: no logins, no cloud dependencies, just a dark-mode reference guide with categories, quick tools, and a search bar I can hit in under a second. It’s packed with the things I constantly look up: subnet math, common port numbers, OSI model in plain English, VLAN explanations with real config examples, Cisco command reminders, and broadcast-specific networking like PTP IEEE 1588 and AES67 troubleshooting notes.

The twist is that the hardest part wasn’t the code, it was figuring out what I actually needed to know. Writing better prompts forced me to name my knowledge gaps, then editing the output turned the guide into a living record of my learning. I also address the pushback: the “AI is killing fundamentals” take, why I don’t buy it for this use case, and how repetition plus a personal cheat sheet can move knowledge from a screen into your head. If you’re learning a domain while surrounded by experts, this is a practical blueprint for building your own reference and getting better faster. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s leveling up, and leave a review with your hottest take: helpful tool or dangerous shortcut?

https://tools.tylerwoodward.me/ 

Transcript

Why Build A Networking Ugly’s

Learning Networking Under Pressure

Vibe Coding The Local Web App

Prompts Reveal Real Knowledge Gaps

Focus Problems And Fast Search

Tyler 0:00

I built this thing because there was a gap. Not out there in the market, but in my own head. Up top. There's this book that uh electricians carry around called The Ugly's Electrical Reference. It's this beat up pocket-sized thing. Looks like it survived the job site fire. And it's got wire gauges, conduit fill tables, motor formulas, code references, just about everything that an electrician would need. And one ugly little package. I kept waiting for the networking equivalent to show up. And so far, it hasn't. So I made one myself. Sort of. This is me talking through how I vibe coded my way into a networking reference guide, why I needed it to learn, and why I genuinely don't care if it makes a few people a little upset. Okay, so let's do a quick little background on this. I'm a broadcast network engineer, which means I came up through the audio and video side of things. Transmitters, signal chains, routing, all that. The IP networking piece came later. And it's been a bit of a self-directed education ever since. And I and I wanna be I want to be real with you for a second. I work alongside network engineers who run absolute circles around me. I'll ask a question and someone rattles off OSPF neighbor state from uh from memory while I'm still trying to remember which layer routing lives on. I came from the field. I know some things. I know enough to be useful, enough to be dangerous, and just barely enough to know what I don't know yet. The way I learn is by doing, by repetition, by getting in there, breaking something, fixing it, and doing it again until it sticks. That works great when I'm hands-on. But when I'm in the middle of something and I just need to remember the command to pull a running config off of a switch, I can't exactly stop and teach a search engine or an AI bot how to understand my question. I just I need the answer in about four seconds, and I need you know, and then I need to get back to what I was doing. And here's the honest thing about learning on the job in this kind of role. When you've got a brain that doesn't love sitting still, to put it gently, you end up with 18 browser tabs open, half a YouTube video, a Cisco documentation page you don't fully understand, and then you go make coffee and forget what you were even looking for in the first place. Sound familiar? No? Cool. Just me? Alright. I needed something I could actually use while I was working. Not a textbook, not a 400-page PDF. Something fast, searchable, mine, like Ugly's. But for the networking concepts I was uh actively bumping into on a on a on the job. The stuff my co-workers already had in their heads that I was still I'm still building toward. I'm still learning. That wasn't a there there wasn't anything like that. So I decided to build one. And I was gonna let an AI do most of the heavy lifting. If you haven't heard the the term vibe coding, it's basically the practice of building software by describing what you want in plain language to AI and you know, irradi you know, going through it in until it works. Without necessarily writing every line yourself. You're you're you're more of a of an architect and the the tastemaker than the person banging out all the syntax. And look. I want to be up front. I'm not a developer. I can read some code, I can edit it, but I've written enough scripts over the years to be dangerous, but sitting down and building a full web app from scratch that's not where I was going to spend my weekend. So I put the machine to work. The idea was simple a locally hosted single-page web app. Nothing fancy, no logins, no cloud dependencies, runs right off of my laptop, or a little local Nginx server. You know, and a dark theme because I'm not a monster. You know, a s I can't do light mode. A sidebar with categories, a search bar I can actually hit fast, and a collection of tools and references content that would cover the stuff I kept having to look up all the time. Especially Subnet math. Port numbers, the OSI model in plain English, for someone who's a dummy like me, Wireshark filters, Cisco iOS commands, the the things that when you're deep in troubles deep within a um, you know, um troubleshooting session at eleven o'clock at night, trying to figure out why your AES 67 stream is dropping packets, you just need it right there and quickly. Here's what I didn't expect. The part that took the most work wasn't the code, it was figuring out what I actually wanted to know or needed to know. When you're writing prompts to generate content for a reference guide, you have to be pretty specific. Add a section about VLANs gives you something generic. But add a reference section that explains VLANs in plain English, includes a config example for a Cisco iOS switch, and shows the most common mistakes people make, that gives you something you might actually reach for at 11 p.m. So, in a weird way, building this thing forced me to inventory my own knowledge gaps. Every section I added was basically me saying, here's a topic I understand at about 60%. Help me get to say 80%. And the act of prompting for it, reviewing the output, editing it, editing it to match the way I actually talk and think about things. Well, it that stuck. Now, I'm I'm not saying AI made me smarter. I'm saying the process of building a thing makes you learn the thing. The AI was just a power tool I was using. The app ended up with about 40 tools and reference sections, calculators, Cisco config generators, Wireshark filter builders, broadcast specific stuff like Studio Hub pinouts, and PTP IEEE 1588 filters, because that's the world I live in. Things I actually needed. Not a comprehensive networking textbook, but my my comprehensive networking reference guide. Built by someone who's still learning it for someone who's still learning it. Now let's let's talk about focus for a second. I said earlier that I struggle with focus. And I think that's actually at the core of why this tool exists in the first place. Generic documentation is not built for people who lose the thread easily. It's built for people who already know roughly what they're looking for and just need the specifics, the details. If you're someone who reads three sentences and then your brain goes, okay, but what about the other thing? And you're suddenly four links deep and have no idea where you started, standard docs for people like me, it's a trap. And the AI and Google problem is real. Look, I like both of those things. And in IT, you use Google a lot. They're useful. But when I'm standing in front of a switch and I need to know the exact syntax for show running dash config, I do not I don't want to type a paragraph into a chat box and wait for a response. I don't want three blue links and a featured snippet. I want my thing. My way. Already organized the way my brain works. Ready to go in one keystroke. What I needed was a tool that was narrow on purpose. A tool that said, Here's the things relevant to your job. Organize the way your brain actually navigates with a search bar you can hit in under a second. Control K, by the way. Muscle memory in like two days. No rabbit holes, no adjacent links pulling you sideways, just the answer to the question you actually asked. And then the next time I need that same command, and the time after that, I've got it now. That's the repetition part. That's how it eventually moves from the app into my head. That brain, that squishy thing up top, where it belongs. Hi, Zach. You want to join my podcast?

unknown 11:22

No?

Pushback On Using AI

Build Your Own Learning Tool

Where To Follow And Support

Tyler 11:22

You're just gonna stand there in the door and look at me? Okay. Don't eat your brother, please, or the dogs. That's what Ugly's guide does for electricians. It doesn't try to be the NEC code book. It tries to be the thing you reach for when you're standing in a in a panel room and you just need to confirm a number. And when you're the person in the room who came up through the field and is still struggling to catch up, that fast focus reference matters more than it probably does for someone who already already has all of this stuff memorized. Now here's the part that complicates the whole story. My oldest. He's just anti-AI. Full stop. Is he still standing by the door? No, I think he left. He doesn't like the idea of it. He doesn't trust where it's going, and he definitely isn't thrilled that I used it for this project at all. From his perspective, the fact that I leaned on AI to help build a networking reference tool is part of the a bigger problem, not some clever shortcut his dad found. And I know he's not alone. If this ever makes it into a comment section somewhere, on Reddit probably. I can already hear the uh the uh the complaints. This is how the world ends. Nobody learns the fundamentals anymore. Everyone's outsourcing their brain. We're doomed. All because I vibe coded a little local network cheat sheet to help my uh very human, very distracted brain remember how to show a running config on a switch at 11 o'clock at night. To those people, all I can say is I don't give two shits. Because this isn't a product launch, it's not a SAS, it's not a course, it's not ten times your networking skills with my AI-powered, excuse me, AI-powered toolkit. It's a weird, custom, slightly janky tool I built for me to bridge the gap between the engineer I am right now and the engineers I work with who can rattle off configs for memory without second guessing, without blinking, like you know, knowing it like the back of your hand. I learned by doing, by repetition, by seeing the command, using it, seeing it again, and eventually not needing to look. And I'm starting to memorize some of this stuff. It's just it, you know, it takes time. This app is just the in-between layer. It's the it's the training wheels. It's the thing that lets me stay in the in the work instead of getting lost in search results every time I blink on some config or a flag I need to add to something. It if that offends your sense of technological purity, that's fine. You don't have to touch it, you don't have to use it. But I'm gonna keep using every tool available to me, including yeah, AI, to get better at the job I actually do in the real world. It's a tool. And if that looks like the end of days from the outside, maybe that says more about the uh the discourse than it does about what's actually happening on my screen late at night. If you've got a knowledge domain you're actively working in and still learning, and especially if you're surrounded by people who already know it better than you, you don't have to wait for someone to hand you the right resource. You can build it yourself now. Even if building it yourself means describing it to an AI bot until something useful comes out of the other side. You don't have to be a developer, you don't have to know what you need. Be willing to describe it clearly. And even if you can't describe it clearly, dump all your thoughts in there and tell it to organize this and then use that to build off the next step. It's useful. And and be willing to edit. What comes back until it actually sounds and feels useful to you makes sense. The version I'm running is live edit tools. I think the word we're telling me. It's up to about 40 something tools and I I keep adding things. Every time I hit a topic, I have to stop and look at that. Or someone works as something and I go home and realize I kind of only half understood what the hell they were talking about. I I come back and add a section for it. It's a record of my own learning, I guess, honestly. Which is a weird thing to say about a web page, but here we are. If I ever do a deeper dive episode on this, I wanna dig into Roncan's specific networking pieces, you know. AES67 andMOS PTP, because that's the corner of IP networking that doesn't get uh nearly enough plain language coverage. For now, this little vibe-coated cheat sheet is my version of Uglies. It fits my brain, and that's enough for me. If you want to follow me for more stuff at Tylerwoodward.me on Instagram at threads, you can also visit Tylerwoodward.me for all the uh past episodes, show notes, links to all the various things, and to support the podcast if you feel so inclined. You can also rate and review the show. I keep hearing that apparently works and helps things. I don't know. I've got three five-star reviews on Apple Podcasts if you want to add to, cool. If not, well. Thanks for listening, anyways, if you made it this far. I'll catch you next week.