We have known for as long as I've been involved in software development that to get humans to build something right, you had to give them good input (garbage in, garbage out). Why do we expect more from the AI tooling?
A split-image composition featuring two distinct panels side by side on a light purple background. On the left, a black-and-white portrait photograph of Agatha Christie, an older woman with short, wavy light-colored hair, resting her chin thoughtfully on her right hand. She wears a dark jacket and gazes to the side the camera with a calm, slightly serious expression. On the right, a vintage book cover for "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie. The title appears in bold yellow and white lettering at the top, with the subtitle "Poirot solves a MURDER on the ORIENT EXPRESS" in stylized arched text. Below, a dramatic illustration shows two silhouetted figures in a dimly lit train corridor bathed in warm orange glow from an open furnace door; one figure bends forward holding a long poker or tool toward the flames, while the other stands nearby observing. The overall design evokes classic mystery and suspense.
#OTD in 1934, Agatha Christie's 𝘔𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘌𝘹𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 was first published.
Christie is the world’s best-selling fiction writer and, per UNESCO, is the most-translated author in history. #literature #litsky #booksky #HappyNewYear
The year of “reasoning” The year of agents The year of coding agents and Claude Code The year of LLMs on the command-line The year of YOLO and the Normalization of Deviance The year of $200/month subscriptions The year of top-ranked Chinese open weight models The year of long tasks The year of prompt-driven image editing The year models won gold in academic competitions The year that Llama lost its way The year that OpenAI lost their lead The year of Gemini The year of pelicans riding bicycles The year I built 110 tools The year of the snitch! The year of vibe coding The (only?) year of MCP The year of alarmingly AI-enabled browsers The year of the lethal trifecta The year of programming on my phone The year of conformance suites The year local models got good, but cloud models got even better The year of slop The year that data centers got extremely unpopular My own words of the year That’s a wrap for 2025
Here's my enormous round-up of everything we learned about LLMs in 2025 - the third in my annual series of reviews of the past twelve months
simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/31/...
This year it's divided into 26 sections! This is the table of contents:
I've been working on @perkeep.org a bunch this holiday break after neglecting it for years, as work (start-up life) had been consuming all of my time.
I was sad to learn that one open PR was 6.5 years old & the author had since passed away:
staticfree.info/ian/
😢 I rebased it & merged it but oof.
Two lemon pigs - a small one and a big one - lemons with toothpick feet and cloves for eyes and little ears and slit mouths with coins in them
Made lemon pigs! 🍋 🐷
It's neat how if you ask Claude Code questions about itself it can answer them, because it knows how to fetch a Markdown index of its own online documentation and then navigate to the right place
I wish more LLM tools would implement the same pattern! simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/24/...
notes on switching to Helix from vim jvns.ca/blog/2025/10...
Watched the OpenAI keynote today and now I really want a TUI Frogger game.
That sounds pretty fascinating!
Saw _One_Battle_After_Another_, the whole family absolutely loved it. However, 2 pairs of people walked out of it, so it may be pretty polarizing (and we only had ~40 people in the theater, 4:40pm Sunday). Reminded me of Tarantino and Cohen Bros movies.
OH: they put a man on the moon with GOTO
First rule of programming: Don't use GOTO. Second rule or programming (experts only): Don't use GOTO yet.
I'm gonna admit it, and many of you are going to be shocked by this: Python is now my SECOND favorite programming language.
![Comic. [chessboard where one block of 2x2 sliding squares is shifted inward, with a blank next to it indicating the direction of the block’s movement] [caption] Sliding Number Puzzle Chess](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreia6lnzy33g5l3i2wdvvij2zpph55grpt5qz7b6t2vs3e53r4hcqja)
Comic. [chessboard where one block of 2x2 sliding squares is shifted inward, with a blank next to it indicating the direction of the block’s movement] [caption] Sliding Number Puzzle Chess
Chess Variant
xkcd.com/3139/
I didn't have high expectations for Spinal Tap II, but we just went to see it and all really, REALLY, enjoyed it. Also, I didn't expect to get much out of seeing it in IMAX, but I'd highly recommend it if you can.
What if the Moon were made entirely of electrons?
Watch the latest What If? video collaboration with @minuteearth.bsky.social!
youtu.be/DiWFXv9N0Vs
The 2025 Python Type System & Tooling Survey is live! No typing experience needed -- your perspective as a Python dev matters most. Take a couple minutes to help improve Python typing for all: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
We have an opening for a principal software engineer on the Python tools team. If you're interested in debuggers, language server protocol, and AI then you might find the position interesting!
jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/jo...
The Python Documentary was fun, nostalgic (painfully so for me; had to stop it twice) and pretty damned good...
... but the highlight for me is two friends caught on camera gossiping about me (without explicitly naming me) 😂 😂
youtube.com/watch?v=GfH4QL4VqJ0
#Python #CultRepo
Reminds me I need to add to my ~/.claude/CLAUDE.md: "Never suggest I use nano to edit a file." :-)
I hate it when my leg falls asleep during the day because it means it is going to be up all night. -- Steven Wright
I was starting to think I was the only one that noticed that "coincidence".
Condescension is rarely a winning strategy.
It is time for us to invite vibe-coders into our programming communities. lucumr.pocoo.org/2025/7/20/th...
The AI 2027 Scenario seems farfetched. Except it basically is just describing compounding interest, and Einstein described compounding interest as "the most powerful force in the universe"... youtu.be/5KVDDfAkRgc?...
If you're a member of the PSF, remember to affirm your intention to vote in the upcoming Board Election: psfmember.org/wp-login.php...
@alsweigart.bsky.social Note you are on the front page of Hacker News: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4454...
This is an amazing HN discussion thread: "Reusing toilet paper rolls isn't sanitary." "If that's true, using your toothbrush is a bigger issue." "Usually you don't use your toothbrush while fondling your genitals." "You don't know what you are missing but to each their own i guess."
I gave that "/software_architect_agent" a try to implement a simple SQL frontend editor and results viewer. It worked for ~6 hours, and produced the most simple, bone stock SQL control with tens of thousands of lines of code. Gave the same prompt just directly to claude and it worked great.