From Agent to A Soul
More Than Just an Agent I’ve been thinking about how we talk about AI systems, and Anthropic’s concept of a “soul” really resonates with me. When you take an agent and layer in personality, …
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Posts archive
Structured notes, essays, and pragmatic field reports.
Fast Is Slow When You're Neck Deep in AI Slop
The Pattern Nobody Wants to Talk About I’ve seen a distinct pattern where AI slows down software development. I know. Heresy. But hear me out. Agents are fast, but in the old saying kind of way: Fast is slow, and …
Announcing ESLint Zero-Tolerance AI Anti-Slop Rules
AI-assisted development has a trust problem. Generated code can look polished, type-safe, and reviewable while still smuggling in shortcuts that quietly erode a codebase over time. The faster teams move with agents, the …
Reverse Engineering Agentic Workflows from Copilot Debug Logs
Here’s a secret weapon for building your own agentic workflows: GitHub Copilot Chat’s debug logs. You know how everyone’s out there wrestling with hallucinating AI agents? Trying to figure out how to …
Javascript Promise
A Promise is a guaranteed placeholder value for what a function or series of functions will return. It’s a promise to return a value eventually. The function swears this time is different. You can trust it. It …
The UI of AI is CLI
We spent decades trying to make computers easier to use. We went from punch cards to command lines to graphical user interfaces to touch screens. We added buttons, menus, icons, gestures, or really anything to avoid …
Planning the Planning: The Agentic Software Development Paradox
Planning the Planning: The Agentic Software Development Paradox You know what’s wild about working with AI agents to build software? The planning. Oh boy, the planning. Not just a plan - that would be too simple. …
Building a Fully Local, Privacy-First AI Chat with Ollama and Open WebUI
Sometimes I want full control, not most, but total, end-to-end control over the tools I use to think, build, and create. That’s where Ollama and Open WebUI comes in. This is my go-to local AI chat setup: a fully local, …
When Pragmatism Meets Silence
Had one of those surreal conversations at work recently. I needed to onboard with an internal AI service—because, frankly, there’s only one option available: and it’s run by a team building their own wrapper around …
The Problem With Floss
You ever have it where you’re flossing, and the floss just won’t go between the teeth? You’re standing there, doing your routine, nothing unusual. Then suddenly, the floss hits a wall. Just stops. Like your teeth …
Rethinking Enterprise Software Development: Embracing Automation Over Outdated Hierarchies
For too long, legacy enterprise development has been constrained by a top-down model that stifles innovation and impedes progress. The conventional emphasis on individual developers paired with rigid managerial oversight …
Unit Testing: Rules and Best Practices
Rules to Follow FIRST Principles Fast – Tests should run quickly to allow frequent execution. Independent – Tests must not depend on each other. Repeatable – A test should always yield the same result. Self-Checking – …
GitHub Actions: GitHub Api Rate Limit Check Action
GitHub Actions doesn’t (seem to?) provide built-in insights into API rate limits, making it difficult to diagnose runtime failures caused by hitting request limits. To address this, I created a reusable GitHub …
Sora Text to Video: Playing with AI Like It’s 2049
Oh, dear readers, I am excited! I have been experimenting with a new tool called Sora. I’ve been using Stable Diffusion since the moment it leaked, and it’s only been getting better and better. But now, with …
Streamlining GitHub Actions Development with Self-Documenting GitHub Actions
In my recent project, I’ve focused on streamlining the development workflow for Cisco Collaboration by migrating thousands of repository build processes to GitHub Actions. This transition has brought numerous …
Local LLMs as a Code Assistant in Visual Studio Code!
I’ve started using a new Visual Studio Code extension called Continue, and it feels like having a private professional paired programming partner powered by local LLMs. Heh, say that three times fast… i’ll …
Microsoft TinyTroupe for Ui Ux Persona Focus Groups
TinyTroupe is incredible. Imagine running your own focus group composed of multi-personality AI agents. From a UI/UX designer’s perspective, the ability to explicitly define user personas and have them evaluate your …
Breaking Up the Big Bottom Library: Streamlining Your Code for Long-Term Health
Over time, code libraries have a habit of expanding like that one “utility” drawer in your kitchen. At first, it’s helpful—everything in its right place, ready for use. But before long, that drawer becomes a catch-all …
Backstage.io Cisco Webex Scaffolder Backend Plugin
Looking to integrate Webex messaging in Backstage? The Webex Module for Backstage Scaffolder makes it simple. This plugin enables seamless integration with Webex Incoming Hooks, allowing you to send messages to one or …
Not all dots are created equal... especially in your Gmail address
Here’s a quick heads-up that might save you some serious headaches. Gmail doesn’t treat dots in email addresses as unique. Whether your address is john.smith@gmail.com or jo.hn.smith@gmail.com, if it has a dot a copy of …
Partial Updates with PATCH: Targeting Only What Needs to Change
When working with RESTful APIs, there are times when you need to update an entire resource, and other times when you only need to tweak a specific part of it. This is where the PATCH method shines. Unlike PUT, which …
A Quick Guide to Designing RESTful Endpoints for Your Api
Let’s dive into the world of RESTful API design, especially for those of you transitioning from Java or other back-end heavy environments. One of the common mistakes I see everyday is naming API endpoints based on the …
Rollup, UUID, and Error Crypto getRandomValues() Not Supported - Solved
I ran into this error while using Rollup and the uuid package: Error: Crypto.getRandomValues() not supported. See https://github.com/uuidjs/uuid#getrandomvalues-not-supported The problem? It boiled down to this small …
You Know What's Going to Be Funny When Ai Goes Offline
You know what’s going to be funny? When AI services go offline and teachers finally get to see what a student’s real writing would be like. Imagine the shock—“Wait, why does this essay look like a …
Today, I Introduced the Interns to Dogfooding
Today, I got to introduce the AI interns to new topics like dogfooding*, cyclomatic complexity, BEM, JSON:API, and why interfaces are so useful. It was great to nerd out with them! Their excitement was contagious, and I …
Why Typescript Interface Names Should Start With "I"
TypesScript interface names should start with “I” because while a type is real, an interface is purely “I"maginary.
Clean Up Your Conditionals: Refactoring If-Else with Switch Statements
If you’re like me, you’ve probably dealt with your fair share of long, messy deeply nested if-else chains. They can get out of hand pretty fast, right? One minute you’re making a simple decision, the …
In Da' Tub
Go, go, go, go get in the tub, With a laptop, start that remote club. We gonna soak while we on the job, Look, team, I got the foam, let’s multitask and bub'. You can find me in the tub, Zoom on with no flub, …
Embracing Multi-Model Approaches for Enhanced Workflow Efficiency
Leveraging multiple models can significantly streamline the software development process. Here’s a strategy to consider: Requirement Analysis: Use one model to gather user requirements. Edge Case Identification: …
Alienware Laptop: The 'Good Place' of Laptops
The world of gaming laptops has given us beasts, titans, and powerhouses. And now, let me introduce to you - the Alienware R1 M16 or as we affectionately dub it, the “Lapchonk”. Never has a device so …
How to Setup Custom PowerPoint Templates in Office 365
Solving PowerPoint Missing Custom Templates Recently went through setting up a new development machine. The one tool that gave the most grief ended up being PowerPoint. Specifically setting up custom PowerPoint …
How to Create a Backstage.io Custom Entity Relationship: A Complete Guide
While working with Backstage.io, you might come across a requirement to create a custom entity relationship. Though the official documentation provides some insights, you may find it too high level. This post offers a …
Building Better REST APIs: A Hybrid Approach with JSend and JSON:API Guidelines
This hybrid API design guide combines elements from both JSend and JSON:API to create a powerful and user-friendly approach for developing REST APIs. By adopting the best practices from both, this guide offers a …
File > New
As I reflect on my time as a professional developer, I realized recently that the only real thing I created was the act of sharing my knowledge with my colleagues. While we developed some impressive products and achieved …
The Last Lesson
I lost my dad in April of 2020. It was exactly one week after my family and I should have been with him for Easter. We had planned a visit, to sit by his side, to hold his hand during the Easter service he loved so much. …
Stable Diffusion Explained Like I Am 5
Imagine “a world, earth, seen from space, 8k, unreal engine, detailed, photorealistic”… Remember the common phrase, “a picture is worth a thousand words”? Well, it’s time to rethink …
Technology Choice Matters
Developers need consistency in the tools they use, as well as a clear understanding of what is expected of them to be productive and successful in their roles. These tools not only impact productivity but also play a …
Why You Should Use IPFS
Interplanetary File System (IPFS) is a peer-to-peer distributed file hosting protocol. When a file or collection of files in a folder are uploaded to the IPFS network. Each individual file and folder is identified with a …
Netlify Functions RESTful API Without Express
What are Netlify Functions? Netlify Functions provide a simple way to build a serverless API layer for any front-end projects. These serverless functions are executed atop AWS’s Lambda platform. The rule here is …
Netlify Single Page App 404 Redirect
tl;dr Add a netlify.toml file to the root of your project if one doesn’t exist. Add the following setting to redirect all routes to your single-page-application. [[redirects]] from = "/*" to = …
Javascript Callbacks
Brief History of Callbacks It all starts with the callback function. A callback function is just a plain JavaScript function that is passed into another function as an argument. That’s it. Nothing special. This …
New Course: Event Handling in jQuery
Event Handling in jQuery My newest course, “Event Handling in jQuery” went live at Pluralsight! View My Course - Event Handling in jQuery GitHub Files - Event Handling in jQuery Course Description Open your …
Contributing to the .Net Runtime
My First .Net Contribution Today a feature enhancement I proposed and implemented was merged into the .Net runtime main branch for .Net 6 release! The Background At the time I was working for a company called, WatchGuard …
Javascript Function Parameters and Arguments Explained
JavaScript Function Signatures Alright, you’ve probably seen functions before. Something like this maybe? function doSomething(name, desc, task) { // did something } This function, named doSomething, takes three …
Being a Programmer
What does that even mean? I love creating something that didn’t exist before, and then ‘bam’—it’s a thing that others can use. It’s thrilling if it’s something people need to use, and …