Some links, and I’ve noticed that AI seems to be dominating them. I don’t know quite why that is? Maybe it’s because we’re in the Cambrian explosion phase. Maybe it’s because for some reason I find it interesting to think about ‘cause theres a thread of philosophy running through it? Anyway, take a read, and let me know what you think.

Technology

• Cursorless is alien magic from the future: I am forever struggling to accept talking to my computer, but this one seems pretty rad. I like that it’s not ‘speak code’ but ‘speak operations’.
• AI, and everything else: Great presentation every year. Worth a read if you like to think more than a year out, and where the puck might be going.
• AI and Trust: An interesting way to think about “trust” in AI. We - humans - keep making category errors and (my words) personifying the AI. We then try to regulate that personified construct. We should be regulating the creators - the corporations.
• AI Agents: This feels too Sci-Fi. This is where I can’t extrapolate to that future on anything other than “infinite time frame”. I believe we will reach that point — but the article feels like it’s written on the expectation of ‘very soon’. But this picture is the same that was posted 20 years ago. I know we’re closer, but we’re still not on the downward slope.
• What kind of bubble is AI?: Cory Doctrow looks at the AI bubble through the lens previous bubbles (dotcom, crypto, gfc), and asks “What will this one leave behind”. The general sentiment here aligns with how I feel about AI right now, although I think the cherry picked example of Cruise is too perfect, too neat.

Software Engineering

• Creating Technical Leverage: I love it when people talk about capabilities, and leveraging existing capabilities in new ways. Technology is about enabling people to achieve new things. But rarely are we building single-solutions to single problems — when you break it down it’s actually about composing existing & new capabilities into solving the problem.
• Maybe Getting Rid of Your QA Team Was A Bad Idea Actually: Don’t like the title. Do like the content. Triage, Defect Tracking, Regression, End To End are very important. You can’t eliminate them. You could reduce them, but be careful how far you go before it falls apart (not very far)

• A Coder considers the waning days of the craft: I’ve thought about this a lot since I read it. The sentiment, I feel. I enjoy “crunching code”, and hewing something out of cold, hard, electrons in my editor and unleashing what I hath wrought upon the world.

  But theres something about the story that makes me think about the “Tri modal Engineering Salaries”. Specifically that there is a set of software work that (1) will be obliterated by the LLMs (2) will be augmented, or (3) is untouchable for a long while (until we get the AGI). I think — I hope — I’m in that second bucket. I think I’d like to be in the 3rd. But I’m screwed if I’m in the first. But I think the authors role might be in bucket one, which kinda makes me unsure about what to read out of the whole story as a commentary on ‘coding craft’.

Leadership / Management / Career

• An Exhausting year in and out of the office: A reflective article on the intrinsic challenges of digital communications, and how many struggle to adapt. There’s a lot of truth here, but I can’t avoid also thinking “a bad craftsperson blames their tools”: The tools can be used in different ways — some effectively, some not. Not everyone has adapted or learned to wield digital communication tools effectively.
• Cathedral vs Bazaar People Management: Stolen from the OG Eric S Raymond, this paradigm applied to managing people is interesting. I think the biggest challenge is you have to be able to do both, concurrently, on a person-by-person basis to get the maximum benefit. Worth a read as you think about managing people.
• Why Should You (Or Anyone) Become An Engineering Manager?: A brilliant breakdown on what it means to be a manager. Perfect.

Random

• Colin Mayer’s ‘Prosperity’ and the Future of the Corporation: “shareholder value” as the mantra by which we run businesses has lead to some pretty bad behaviour in aggregate. I, someone who knows bupkis about the nash equilibrium, (great movie!) feels Colin Mayer’s suggestion for the purpose of a corporation might be better in the long run
• Nervous Energy: This is a journey I’ve been going through — getting that habit of circling the stupid websites out of me to let my brain slow down. I was semi successful in 2020, for about 10 months, of just Getting Off The Socials™. I need to take a serious run at it again.
• Seeing like a bank: A lovely essay about why bank customer support & systems seem so bonkers. But I would also extend this to all customer support.