Fragments: August 18

The useful part

Part of the reason why I'm at Thoughtworks is because I'd like to see a software development organization founded on technical excellence as an example for the rest of the industry. The trouble is that I have little aptitude or inclination for the hard work of building such an organization. So I rely on working with people who are prepared to actually put the effort in.

How it works

• A key partner in all of this is Rachel Laycock, who is the global CTO of Thoughtworks.
• The sessions examine what happens when agentic systems meet compliance, how to run sovereign models, performance patterns in data migrations and how to safely navigate legacy codebases.
• I've been urging her to write these down, even if her busy schedule makes it difficult for her to compose them into something substantial.
• Happily she's starting writing "Rachel's Ramblings" Fast, imperfect, thinking out loud.
• Because the reality is, most of what I do day to day isn't answering known questions.

What to take from it

It's spotting patterns and asking questions we haven't quite figured out yet. ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ My colleagues in Europe are organizing XConf Europe in London on September 11th. ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ ❄ Noah Smith recognizes the high usage of AI, and its impressive feats.

Details worth keeping

Naming ideas early rather than waiting until they're fully formed. Lu Wilson will give a keynote on 'Jam-oriented programming'.