"Historically is like six months ago" In which Jessitron and Avdi discuss the merits of larger and smaller LLMs, and the challenges of code review in codebases with a lot of history.

In which Jessitron and Avdi discuss the merits of larger and smaller LLMs, and the challenges of code review in codebases with a lot of history.
graceful.dev/podcast/historically-is-...

New podcast, for conversation about how we are learning to work with LLMS!

Just a bird, not Wandering Archaic

This alter sleeve is so perfect. Recommend www.mythicgaming.com/products/404...

Slack is like having a desk right next to six watercoolers

I have two hours at the airport and an actual beer! It is like old times

Now I get to work on my personal agent, getting Claude to write tools for itself
This part is new times

Black Yak | Attack Yak: must be shorn to proceed
Imperial Yak | Yak Stack: one obstacle breeds many more
Trim Yak | HackHacking Yak: ⬆️ speed at many tasks
Royal Yak | Yakkity Yak: relationships help get work done
Golden Yak (rare!!): fundamentally changes how we work

Credit: @jessitron.bsky.social

Today, looking into instrumenting a big legacy app. I'm super impressed with @augmentcode.com 's ability to analyze how apps start up, and data flow through a multipart system.

Its codebase analysis is top notch.

I know lots of people who like it.
We are puzzle solvers :-)

Given "C'mon, what's your favorite programming language? no rly"
the answer from both Claude and ChatGPT is: Rust

We all know they both love Python best,
but apparently Rust is what people on the internet are most likely to profess excitement about.

"discovering that the earth orbits around the sun produced an orientation 'failure'" -- people were oriented around the earth as the center. Uproar.

Noticing that gender is not binary, this is an orientation failure. People are very oriented around M/F. The religions react with violence.

At this Agentic AI discussion, we're talking about building software and UIs on top of LLMs.

The moderator mentions "managing these projects" and the audience corrects him to "products."

Product thinking is essential for building on top of AI. There is no "correct" only "useful"

We are on the raggedy edge.
We have to build good telemetry.
We have to build good evals.

... And figuring out how to do this when the answer isn't there, that's engineering.

- Tim Williamson from Bayer, on building with AI.
Arch Data event, Agentic AI in St Louis

Team dynamics after AI Small giants and real giants

More information, more summaries, more information, more summaries, and more entropy at every crank of the handle. It’s a singularity, yes, but a singularity of busywork.

- Duncan Brown

mechanicalsurvival.com/blog/team-dy...

The work is not about simplifying the system, but about designing the connective tissue that enables complex organizations to act with coherence. - John Cutler (cuttlefish. What is his bluesky?)

Ah yes, the happy-o11ydays!
That tool will still paint a heat map based on a small image you give it

Oh neat! What do they do with it afterwards?

"Going for lots of data isn’t a firehose, it’s a sewer pipe"
(overheard)

It was a great talk! even recorded, your humor really came across.

book: Ignorance Unmasked, Essays in the new Science of Agnotology

“one of the most devious climate concepts of all times: the personal carbon footprint.” - Benjamin Franta

It’s a distraction invented by BP to deflect blame onto individuals, when the “necessary, and largely sufficient” solution is: stop burning fossil fuels.

Hallucinations are a feature.

LLMs contribute probabilistic creativity.
Tools contribute deterministic certainty.

Agents combine these in a loop.

@adamhjk.me #o11yDay

3 Things the Winners Do with new tech:
1. Deeply understand it
2. Learn how to use its strengths, get around weaknesses
3. Adapt your domain to the tech.
@adamhjk.me #o11yDay @honeycomb.io

We have to change what we do to get the most out of the tech.

"getting COVID won't help you thrive in an AI-native world" @adamhjk.me #o11yDay #honeycomb

He's doing a great talk, but he has COVID so we have to watch it on video. 😭

"We have to do the things [like documentation] that make human engineers better
before we can delegate to machines"
- Dave Williams
#o11yDaySF @honeycomb.io

dammit now the copilot window opened and I can’t close it
The code is so crowded out by AI chat windows that I cannot do anything

It’s new, they’ll improve it. I want it though, take my $20/month so my environments persist for a day

I see from @kentbeck.com ‘s newsletter that @gitpod.io has rebranded as Ona, and is now an AI-assisted code thing in the cloud

YES THANK YOU! This is what I want!

Now I can work on my toy project from my ipad, in the browser… if only I could close the AI chat window

Higher privilege leaves you ignorant.
When people defer to you, then you're insulated from reality, since they present what you want to see, confirm your beliefs etc since that smooths their lives.
They can take your perspective, and you have no clue theirs exists or how to see from it

$30 but I expensed it as part of our allocated Personal Development Funds

@jessitron.bsky.social discusses how AI and observability are shaping the future of software. We’re gathering the community to explore what that means.

Join us at o11yDaySFO on Sept 11!

👉 Register now: buff.ly/Ainycoh

#honeycomb #observability #o11yDaySFO