When we need an LLM to perform a complex task, we often need to feed it a lot of context. Coming up with a design for a new feature requires descriptions of how we want the feature to appear to the user, guidelines on how it should be implemented, information on external systems to consult, […]
What Is Code?
What is code? At a high level, the answer to this question seems obvious. Code is what developers write: instructions expressed in a programming language that tells machines what to do. For years, writing code meant typing it out, word by word. Progress is measured by how efficiently code can be produced, compiled, tested and […]
Mythical Man Month
In the early 1960s, Fred Brooks managed the development of IBM’s System/360 computer systems. After it was done he penned his thoughts in the book The Mythical Man-Month which became one of the most influential books on software development after its publication in 1975. Reading it in 2026, we’ll find some of it outdated, but […]
Fragments: May 5
Over the last couple of months Rahul Garg published a series of posts here on how to reduce the friction in AI-assisted programming. To make it easier to put these ideas into practice he’s now built an open-source framework to operationalize these patterns. AI coding assistants jump straight to code, silently make design decisions, forget […]
Fragments: April 29
Chris Parsons has updated his guide on using AI to code. This is his third update, what I like about it is that he gives a lot of concrete information about how he uses AI, with sufficient detail that we can learn from him. His advice also resonates with the better advice I’ve seen out […]
Structured-Prompt-Driven Development (SPDD)
Once a team adopts AI coding assistants, the first gains show up at the individual level: one developer can draft, modify, and refactor code much faster than before. But delivery speed is rarely limited by typing. When you look at the full delivery lifecycle, from requirements through release, new friction appears: Ambiguous requirements become code […]
Fragments: April 21
Last week Thoughtworks released the 34th volume of our Technology Radar. This radar is our biannual survey of our experience of the technology scene, highlighting tools, techniques, platforms, and languages that we’ve used or otherwise caught our eye. This edition contains 118 blips, each briefly describing our impressions of one of these elements. As we […]
Fragments: April 14
I attended the first Pragmatic Summit early this year, and while there host Gergely Orosz interviewed Kent Beck and myself on stage. The video runs for about half-an-hour. I always enjoy nattering with Kent like this, and Gergely pushed into some worthwhile topics. Given the timing, AI dominated the conversation – we compared it to […]
Alan Turing play in Cambridge MA
Last night I saw Central Square Theater’s excellent production of Breaking the Code. It’s about Alan Turing, who made a monumental contribution to both my profession and the fate of free democracies. Well worth seeing if you’re in the Boston area this month. Source link
Fragments: April 9
I mostly link to written material here, but I’ve recently listened to two excellent podcasts that I can recommend. Anyone who regularly reads these fragments knows that I’m a big fan of Simon Willison, his (also very fragmentary) posts have earned a regular spot in my RSS reader. But the problem with fragments, however valuable, […]
