The Many Challenges in Integrating Information for AI Agents
Recently I’ve been thinking quite a lot about information availability for agents, and the fact that this is a very difficult and potentially irresoluble problem. Let me try to explain myself. I talked before about a mental model on differentiating between the LLM models and the tools that access those models. I think that now that’s clearer as we are using more and more agents. We understand that we can use Claude Code with different models (like Sonnet or Opus) that change the capacity of the agent, but not its capabilities. The… Read More
Python Automation Cookbook 3rd edition: now with AI recipes.
Exciting news! The third edition of the Python Automation Cookbook is out, featuring a vibrant new cover and over 100 pages of fresh AI content. Aimed at Python enthusiasts of all levels, it retains classic recipes while introducing innovative ways to incorporate AI in code. A fantastic addition to any developer’s library!
LLMs and Context
Let’s start for something simple. LLMs don’t have memory. Every time that you make a call to an LLM, you need to provide as an input all the context related to the request. The LLM will pick up this context and produce a result. But, when using AI tools, for example a chat bot, you see that you have a conversation. And it continues the conversation and references things said before. And that is because the chat bot itself maintains and references the context back and forth. In a naive way, it… Read More
Agents and Agency
There’s a lot of talk about the capabilities of AI Agents, and a lot of promise on the things that they may be able to achieve. Or not achieve. As well as a lot of excitement, there’s a lot of skepticism, where not direct rejection. The term of AI Agent is still a bit in flux, but it refers to a program that runs independently with a particular goal and it’s capable of taking actions. The instructions to it are either specific to be done right now (for example: “Go to this… Read More
Interacting with GenAI Models
The evolving landscape of AI features a growing interconnectivity between GenAI models and frontend tools. Companies are rapidly developing both open-source and proprietary models, challenging the dominance of established players like OpenAI. While backend models are costly to create, both them and frontends may become commoditised, leading to innovative collaboration through APIs and agents.
My year in Amazon
Well, it was actually just 11 months, but it makes more sense to round it up. This happened a bit over two years ago, which in software developer time feels very far away in the past, so I think it makes sense to talk about it. On 2022 I got an offer to work on Amazon in a sort of unexpected way. They actually contacted me two years before, but at that time I just started a job and didn’t want to move so early. But they came back asking, and I… Read More
Adventures in Vibe Coding
Recently, I’ve been playing around with GenAI tools. Yes, I know I’m late at this point, but these days coding is not as big a part of my day-to-day as it used to (though I still do it regularly), and I have never been too interested in autocomplete tools, which has been the way most of the GenAI for programming has been labelled. The integration also with my regular workflow is not as straightforward. Most of the tools are more based on an IDE, most of what I’ve seen has been mainly… Read More
Insights from ShipItCon 2024
Another year, another ShipItCon! I’ve talked already on the previous instances of the conference. To keep things short, it’s an annual conference based in Dublin that works around the idea of releasing software. Because it’s very open-ended topic that can be approached from lots of angles, and it’s something different from the more stereotypical “conference around a technology”, the talks are quite varied. The organisation always finds good speakers that talk about interesting concepts, from very different points of view, making it quite broad in scope. It’s full of, as the MC… Read More
Notes about ShipItCon 2023
It’s this time of the year again, and another ShipItCon review is due! I’ve talked about the previous instances of this conference, which happens in Dublin, roughly once a year (though the pandemic years it did not happened), and I think is a quite interesting conference, especially as it revolves more about the concept of Software Delivery, in a broad sense. That makes for very different talks, from quite technical ones to other focused more on team work or high concepts. Perhaps because I’m getting older, I appreciate that kind of “high-level”… Read More
The unavoidable review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
New Indiana Jones movie! Amazing! It seemed that we will never got another one after Last Crusade Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! 15 years already! I’ve always been a great fan of the character, and of course I had to go watch the new adventure. What’s my opinion? Well… it’s fine. Is it GREAT? I don’t think so. But it’s a fun and enjoyable adventure movie, 100% worth watching. Does it raise to the level of the best instalments of the saga? No, but because those are the best of the best… Read More
Wrong Side of Memphis 