I write about using AI with real codebases in the real world.
Every week I work with my clients as they adopt agentic workflows. These are real codebases being built to meet real deadlines for clients paying very real money. We dig in, celebrate our successes and learn from our failures and then I write up what happened and share it with you. No hype, no sales, just the good stuff written 100% by me without the help of AI. It's my promise..
It's a strange and fun time to be doing this work.
There's a lot of noise right now and most of the bearded oracles on YouTube haven't shipped a production agent in their lives. This is tough work and it's not magical - you can't just 10x your crew overnight! The actual work of "operationalizing" AI in your company workflow takes time. It's a human effort that goes far, far beyond the tooling and deep into why we do this gig in the first place.
This is why I write my newsletter. I'm in there with the teams adopting AI and breaking apart their current understanding of software development. I listen to the full-throated arguments and frustration, and I also celebrate with others who are working so, so much faster than they ever have. I get yelled at, called names, and flamed on a daily basis. I also get to share in the joy that others feel when they realize that this industry is changing, like it always does, and isn't leaving them behind.
This is a fun job and is easily the most exciting time I can think of for software developers.
A bit about me: if I'm learning something new, my first instinct is to ask why it's important. Then I ask how it breaks, and after that I see if I can break it in new ways people haven't thought of. If I'm having fun (which I am if it's in pieces on the floor), I'll see if I can put it back together again, and break it in a whole new way. Basically I'm a GenX Tech Toddler that knows how to write and make videos.
I wrote The Imposter’s Handbook because I was tired of pretending I knew what a B-tree was and that maybe people with CS degrees were actually OK. I spent a stint at Microsoft on the ASP.NET and VS Code teams, watching enterprise software get made and pinching myself because I was working with my heroes and somehow they thought I should have a seat at the table. Maybe I did, maybe not. I made videos based on what I learned and did well enough that I sold the effort to Pluralsight many years later.
These days I help teams figure out what AI can actually do for their business. Not what it promises in the keynote or what the talking heads say on YouTube, but what survives contact with a real backlog, a real legal team, and a real Tuesday afternoon. I write it down (after I break it a few times) and share it with you.
This is fun to me.
The walkthroughs I wish somebody had made six months ago.
These run 60 to 90 minutes, sometimes longer. I take a real project and walk through it start to finish, what worked, what fell apart, where Claude went sideways and where it surprised me. Subscribers see them first, the newsletter usually has a teaser of what's coming.
Agentic Orchestration Overview
Knowing how to use AI tooling is only the beginning. Understanding how to orchestrate agents is where the value is. You can work faster and more efficiently by tightly managing your context windows.
Creating an MCP Server Using Node
I gave two in-person workshops recently at NDC Porto where we built out an MCP server for Claude... using Claude. Here's a recap.
Creating a Markdown Compiler
One of the most powerful things that AI can do for you is to create a script that does a thing you don't want to do. Mind-numbing, boring tasks, like compiling markdown documents into a format for a documentation site, or, in my case, a course template.
Fresh off the field.
Some recent posts. Have a poke around and see what catches your eye.
Want to come along?
It's free and it lands in your inbox on Sunday. Sometimes I'm geeking out about a thing I built that week, sometimes it's a story about a client gig where something went pear-shaped and I learned the hard way. If that sounds like fun, drop your email below. Unsubscribe whenever, no hard feelings.
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