Preclinical drug discovery is inherently complex and data-intensive. Researchers face the significant challenge of efficiently accessing and analyzing vast volumes of information generated during this critical phase. Traditional keyword-based search methods, often reliant on rigid Boolean logic, frequently fall short when confronted with the nuanced and intricate nature of preclinical research questions. The advent of […]
Fragments: June 16
“Prag Dave” Thomas (co-author of the outstanding “Pragmatic Programmer”) has loved programming since he was young. Programming was how I could express myself. I wasn’t an artist. When I sing, dogs howl. When I draw, friends say, “Very nice. What is it?” I didn’t connect particularly well with people, even though I wanted to. And […]
Fragments: June 2
Greg Wilson has noticed that lots of folks are using dodgy metrics to figure out if AI tools are worth their costs. Would you measure lines of code generated, or tickets closed? Or would you send out a survey asking whether developers feel more productive? Each of those approaches is flawed in a different way; […]
Fragments: May 27
At the GOTO Conference in Copenhagen in 2025, Kent Beck and I spent some time on stage talking and answering questions from the audience – a format I refer to as “two old geezers on a park bench”. We talk about our experiences with LLM-augmented programming (at that point – October 2025), we show our […]
Maintainability sensors for coding agents
There are multiple dimensions we usually want to achieve and monitor in our codebases: Functional correctness (works as intended), architectural fitness (is fast/secure/usable enough), and maintainability. I define maintainability here as making it easy and low risk to change the codebase over time – also known as “internal quality”. So I don’t only want to […]
The VibeSec Reckoning
Vibe coding has significantly accelerated software prototyping but AI agents frequently recommend insecure configurations, creating security problems. Gautam Koul, Lucian Moss, Neil Drew-Lopez, and Daberechi Ruth Edeokoh share their experience while building applications for Thoughtworks’s global marketing. They learned that to combat this we need to write a security context file to guide the AI, […]
Vibe Coding
Vibe coding is building a software application by prompting an LLM, telling it what to build, trying it out, prompting for changes – but without looking at any of the code that the LLM generates. This technique can be used by people without any knowledge of programming. However the resulting software often shows problems with […]
Maintainability sensors for coding agents
There are multiple dimensions we usually want to achieve and monitor in our codebases: Functional correctness (works as intended), architectural fitness (is fast/secure/usable enough), and maintainability. I define maintainability here as making it easy and low risk to change the codebase over time – also known as “internal quality”. So I don’t only want to […]
Maintainability sensors for coding agents
There are multiple dimensions we usually want to achieve and monitor in our codebases: Functional correctness (works as intended), architectural fitness (is fast/secure/usable enough), and maintainability. I define maintainability here as making it easy and low risk to change the codebase over time – also known as “internal quality”. So I don’t only want to […]
Fragments: May 14
Last week I spent a day at a retreat that brought together several people working in software development to talk about the profession’s future with the rise of agentic programming. The event was help under the Chatham House Rule, so I can’t attribute the comments and stories I heard. (If anyone recognizes themselves, and would […]
