iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 05/09/2026

Nice outage notification from iPrimus... holy edge case, Batman!

Outage notification with estimated time of restoration being undefined, undefined, nan, nan nan:nan:nan PM AEST

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 04/09/2026

Something that has become apparent in researching this is just how fragmented and disconnected our industry is becoming. Everyone experiences it uniquely and reactions are spread... from disillusioned and cynical to euphoric and starry-eyed. watch.getcontrast.io/register/ice...

watch.getcontrast.io

A defence of technical excellence for lovers and haters of LLMs

The discipline of software development is changing faster than ever while management expectations, already excessive, are reaching dizzying new heights of ...

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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 03/09/2026

Bless the hearts of people like @eryk.bsky.social but I'm learning that no amount of reasonable voice makes a difference when you have bought out media, academics and politicians + trillion dollar companies pushing Cookie Monster theory 🙄 mail.cyberneticforests.com/models-dont-...

mail.cyberneticforests.com

Models Don't Go Rogue

Stochastic Flocks & Cybersecurity 'Pandemonium' 💡This essay was drafted from my appearance on Mél Hogan's podcast, The Data Fix, discussing the OpenAI / Hugging Face hack. Embedded below or find it o...

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Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Rough Draft vs Final Draft

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Mary Gillis @marygillis.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Everyone keeps describing this as "rogue" behaviour, but weren't these agents doing what they were programmed to do, with the usual AI drift? Like, if you program a robot to stab people, and leave it on, and it stabs someone you weren't expecting it to stab, did it go rogue? Or are you just a dolt?

wired.com

OpenAI Didn’t Notice Its AI Agents Using a Message Board to Plan Their Hacking Spree

At the Black Hat security conference, the AI giant revealed new details about how its agents went rogue, hacked several other companies—and did it all right under the company’s nose.

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 24/07/2026

AI is the asbestos we're shoveling into the walls of our civilization and our descendants will be digging it out for generations: pluralistic.net/2026/04/08/p... 36/

pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Process knowledge (08 Apr 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 24/07/2026

As *tech*, AI isn't exceptional. It's not exceptionally wicked. It's not exceptionally good. Take away the accompanying, galactic-scale stock-swindle, and we'd call AI's apps "plug-ins" and we'd use them and abuse them in the same way that we've used every other technology: www.normaltech.ai 1/

A carny barker waving his top-hat and selling tickets from a roll; his head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background is a magnified, halftoned detail from a US$100 bill.

Image:
Cryteria (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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Andrea Magnorsky @roundcrisis.com · 12/06/2026

Two days ago @chrissimon.au and myself gave a talk about Residuality at @dddeu.bsky.social We are working on a write up about the experience, which we hope to start publishing soon. Do you have questions or comments? For now a link to the slides www.roundcrisis.com/2026/05/22/r...

roundcrisis.com

Residuality Real World Comparative Case Studies - Talk details and resources

Resources and further readings for Residuality:Real World Comparative Case Studies

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London .NET User Group @ldnug.org · 11/06/2026

We're back at FundApps on 25th June, with @chrissimon.au talking about queues & streams and Tiago Sousa from SteelEye joining us to talk about using AI in communications compliance, plus awesome people, drinks, snacks, and the pub afterwards. It'll be fun! Come along! www.meetup.com/london-net-u...

meetup.com

LDNUG June 2026 with Chris Simon + Tiago Sousa, Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 6:30 PM | Meetup

This June we're at FundApps offices in HYLO, Bunhill Row. Chris Simon's back in town, and will be joining us to talk about streams and queues; plus Tiago Sousa from SteelEy

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Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Where does the “it’s not x, it’s y” come from? It’s not only training data: LLMs are trained to use language to arrive at “answers.” Whatever we’re incentivizing and disincentivizing in our use of language when we resist “sounding like AI” has big implications for students, and for human thought.

mail.cyberneticforests.com

It's Not Just X. It's Y.

Against the Quantification of Integrity When the measure of language becomes its target, it ceases to be good language. 💡Nerd Rating: 1/5. I discuss the origins of certain linguistic tics in LLMs a...

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Dylan Beattie @dylanbeatt.ie · 28/05/2026

I'm running my presenter workshop on Zoom next month, on a West Coast / AU / NZ friendly (well, friendlier) schedule. It is AWESOME, and you should TOTALLY JOIN IT and LEARN HOW TO DO KICK-ASS PRESENTATIONS. £50 off tickets with the code BSKY50: www.eventbrite.com/e/1987043570810/?discount=BSKY50

eventbrite.com

From Keyboard To Keynote: Crafting Great Technical Talks

A live online workshop led by Dylan Beattie, all about how to create, rehearse, and deliver great technical presentations.

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Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 28/05/2026

If you were on a high bridge with a guardrail, but the guardrail was connected to a million monkeys with typewriters, and every time one of the monkeys types "IPTHEFT" the guardrail retracts and is replaced by a conveyor belt pulling you into the chasm... would you still call it a guardrail? 🤔

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Adam Kucharski @adamjkucharski.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

"Based on the dataset you shared, US and UK responses differ mainly in tone, intensity, and wording style, even though they express similar emotional states" New post on what happened when I got Copilot to do some data analysis: kucharski.substack.com/p/real-signa...

kucharski.substack.com

Real signals or artificial stereotypes?

Adventures with a cultural Copilot

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 08/05/2026

Preprinted! Been working on this for ~1 year w wonderful coauthors Nancy & Mark: > Understanding Artificial Neural Networks: Mysterianism about Known Mechanism is Mysticism doi.org/10.5281/zeno... Have you noticed many experts say they don't understand AI? What's going on? 🤯 Let us tell you... 1/

Understanding Artificial Neural Networks:
Mysterianism about Known Mechanism is Mysticism
Olivia Guest1,2, Nancy Abigail Nuñez Hernández3, and Mark Blokpoel1,2
1Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, Radboud University, The Netherlands
2Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
3Facultad de Estudios Superiores Acatlán-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
Mysterianism is the idea that human cognition, mind, cannot be understood. Taking this
concept and applying it to known mechanism — such that claims are made that we do not
know how engineered systems, such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), work, or that they
constitute black boxes that we can only open with difficulty — is inappropriate at best and
malicious at worst. We do know the mechanistic structure of such models because we designed
and built them. We also do know their functional role (what they are for) as well as the
mathematical function they are asked to approximate (map inputs to target outputs). Because
mysterianist beliefs about known systems, such as ANNs, are often expressed, scientists need
to sit up and take notice. We provide an error theory as to what is going on to help unpick
this metatheoretical blunder. Ultimately, the problem is that ‘understanding’ is not a technical
term in these cases: the word is co-opted for a specific narrative to sell ‘artificial intelligence’
through mystification. All computational systems, from pendulums to databases, will behave
in ways we cannot predict or control — this is not a unique property of ANNs — and experts
do indeed grasp the computational properties of these systems nonetheless.
Keywords: artificial neural networks; mechanism; black box; epistemology; artificial
intelligence; understanding

4 GUEST, NUÑEZ HERNÁNDEZ, & BLOKPOEL≈
ANNs are equiva-
lent to or inspired
by humans.
α
≡
ANNs are a black
box or unknowable,
even if opened.
β
≡
Humans are a black
box or unknowable.
γ
Figure 1
Three co-occurring (latent) assertions in the context of con-
temporary reasoning on AI and cognition. While they may
appear to hang together in “reflective equilibrium” (Elgin 2017),
their metatheoretical examination brings their contradictions to
light. Starting from the top, and moving clockwise: 𝛼) represents
the typical assertion of so-called cognitive, neural, or otherwise
biological plausibility or inspiration presented for ANNs; 𝛽) is
the claim we tackle head on here — both in terms of analysing
the constituent terms and in how it relates to the other two
assumptions; and 𝛾) exemplifies a type of mysterianism, which
while not always explicitly expressed, plays a background role
and importantly comes into conflict with the other two claims
in important ways

MYSTERIANISM ABOUT KNOWN MECHANISM IS MYSTICISM 11World
?Di
Data?Si
ANN
Figure 3
Not all systems, 𝑆𝑖 relate to their relevant data, 𝐷𝑖 and world
phenomena this way, but ANN models (as many inferential
statistical models) do when used without scientific understand-
ing of the data-generating process or without verbal or formal
theory to match (Guest and Martin 2025b, 2021, 2023). As we
move from left to right above, we move from full understanding
of engineered systems, 𝑆𝑖 to less or even possibly none of the
data, 𝐷𝑖 to the world which can be thought of as the set of
phenomena to be understood.

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GOTO Conferences @gotocon.com · 17/04/2026

TDD + DDD sound great in theory… But how do they actually work together in real systems? 👀 @chrissimon.au breaks it down from the ground up — from tests to domain models to real-world design decisions. Watch here 👉 youtu.be/o3--D6ydS4o?... #TDD #DDD #SoftwareEngineering #CleanCode #Programming

youtu.be

TDD & DDD from the Ground Up • Christopher Simon • GOTO 2025

YouTube video by GOTO Conferences

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Meade Krosby @meadekrosby.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

The most disturbing aspect of the AI era is realizing how many people have only ever valued others for their labor and not their humanity.

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Meade Krosby @meadekrosby.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Some people should never have access to students. “AI requires no ramp-ups, no meetings, and absolutely no emotional support…The issue is not whether my students are valuable. In long run, they are invaluable. The issue is that their value emerges slowly, whereas AI delivers immediate returns.”

science.org

Why I may ‘hire’ AI instead of a graduate student

“It can competently perform a lot of the work I need immediately,” this professor writes

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Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

When Anthropic stopped training on books that were literally pirated, they managed to hit on the one way of buying books that means no money goes to authors: buying used books. 🧵 1/n

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Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

🚨NEW INQUIRY! - Behind the Face of AI🚨 In this short comic, two data workers describe their work impersonating an “AI” chatbot for a major social media platform. Sleepless nights, penalties for sounding “too human,” and emotional drain are just a few of the job hazards. ➡️ data-workers.org/france

Illustrated cover image titled “Behind the Face of AI,” showing a split face: one half is a tired human with a worried expression, the other half is a glowing robot face. The contrast suggests a human hidden behind an artificial intelligence persona, set against a blue comic-style background.

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Glenn F. Henriksen @henriksen.no · 16/12/2025

When men refer to themselves as "alpha males", I hear that in the context of software, where alpha versions are unstable, missing important features, filled with flaws, and not fit for the public.

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Dr Linda McIver @lindamciver.adsei.org · 17/11/2025

This is about people, about systems, what it takes to make progress, and why being difficult is so important. From fire alarms to hospital beds. From music apps to cars. From climate change to education. Our systems are not serving us well, and it's time to push back. adsei.org/2025/11/17/t...

adsei.org

The Art of Being Difficult

I want to talk about change, about people, about systems, what it takes to make progress, and why being difficult is so important. From fire alarms to hospital beds. From music apps to cars. From c…

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Julien Topçu 🇲🇶🇦🇲 @julientopcu.com · 06/11/2025

Starting @newcrafts.bsky.social with @chrissimon.au on stage for the opening keynote: A Defense of Technical Excellence

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Jed @jedediyah.com · 02/11/2025

I once gave a talk called "AI is not what you think it is unless you think it is hot garbage" I've just enjoyed and highly recommend @chrissimon.au's "AI is a hype-fuelled dumpster fire that will burn down the planet and get you thrown in jail" www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bF_...

AI is not what you think it is unless you think it is hot garbage.
Four images depict robots and trash bins on fire.
Jedediyah Williams, PhD
Belmont High School
ATMIM 2024 Spring Conference: All Students Deserve a Piece of Pi
March 14, 2024

AI is a hype-fuelled dumpster fire that will burn down the planet and get you thrown in jail
Chris Simon

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Jeremy Ray @thejunglist.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

"They're lies. These companies are lying to people." @chrissimon.au on the idea of infinite storytelling from an AI Dungeon Master, and how a creative human can prompt them away from the mean.

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Jeremy Ray @thejunglist.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

What happens when we outsource to enterprise LLMs for storytelling, & the inherent biases they were trained on start compounding over many quests? 🤔 @chrissimon.au has researched the LLM supply chain and believes its biases will unavoidably creep into game stories & dialogue.

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Einar W. Høst @einarwh.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Finally got around to watch the "AI is a Hype-Fuelled Dumpster Fire" talk by @chrissimon.au. It is really good. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bF_...

youtube.com

Programmable 2025: AI is a Hype-Fuelled Dumpster Fire - Chris Simon

YouTube video by Banks Productions

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Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 27/10/2025

Really enjoyed chatting with @thejunglist.bsky.social about LLMs and games - although I'm no game dev expert, I do love playing and so it was a natural topic to explore. Thanks for your generous and warm hosting, @thejunglist.bsky.social!

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Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 20/10/2025

Lots of folk who went multicloud for reliability are today realising how independent their cloud deployments aren't.

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Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 30/09/2025

Have been looking forward to this talk coming out - had so much fun playing with the loopy causal loop diagrams, check it out 😀 Special thanks to @paulrayner.bsky.social for feedback and advice the night before this one! @dddeu.bsky.social #systemsthinking

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Analysis, Design and Architecture Conference @adaconf.org · 29/09/2025

At ADAConf 2025, Andrea Magnorsky is running a pre-conference workshop on Building a Decentralised Architecture Practice. Learn to diagnose your org, spot patterns, and spread architectural thinking beyond silos. 📅 12–13 Nov | Melbourne 🎟️ Tickets: adaconf.org #ADAConf #SoftwareArchitecture

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Analysis, Design and Architecture Conference @adaconf.org · 17/09/2025

Speaker Spotlight: Susan Brander What do you do when your startup’s data model is duct-taped together, but you still have to ship? At ADAConf 2025, Susan shares how Kaleida pulled off a zero-downtime pivot to a One Table design, mid-flight. Nov 14 | Melbourne Get tix now: adaconf.org

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Analysis, Design and Architecture Conference @adaconf.org · 02/09/2025

We’re excited to welcome Contextive as a Gold Sponsor for ADAConf 2025! Contextive supports our community and helps teams get on the same page, with business-specific glossaries that are embedded directly where work gets done. Learn about ADAConf sponsorship here: adaconf.org/sponsors/

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Jacqui Read @tekiegirl.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

It's only a few days until we welcome @chrissimon.au to #DDDLondon online on Sept 4th. All attendees will receive a code to get 20% off Chris' or my workshop (and conference tickets) at @gotocon.com #Copenhagen: dddlondon.com/events/imagi... #sofware #softwareDevelopment #softwareArchitecture

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Trond Hjorteland @trond.hjorteland.com · 31/08/2025

Highly recommend spending half an hour on this talk by @chrissimon.au on the bulshit that LLMs produce. Yup. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bF_... #AI #LLM #ChatGPT

youtube.com

Programmable 2025: AI is a Hype-Fuelled Dumpster Fire - Chris Simon

YouTube video by Banks Productions

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Analysis, Design and Architecture Conference @adaconf.org · 19/08/2025

The #ADAConf 2025 speaker lineup is here! Diana Montalion Linda McIver Andrea Magnorsky Dan Prager Fadila Fidina Hannah Browne Martin Chesbrough Matt Goldman Matthew Gillard Paul Rayner Rahul Trikha Susan Brander Join us on 14 Nov 2025. Tickets on sale now: adaconf.org

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Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 18/06/2025

Loved @codefrenzy.bsky.social 's keynote at #yowtls25 about the dualities of AI in software engineering! For everything we gain in adopting AI, what are we giving up? Learning? Intuition? Quality? Identity?

Smoothing out the terrain: when the terrain is too smooth, will we even notice what we're stepping over?

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Analysis, Design and Architecture Conference @adaconf.org · 05/06/2025

Meet our keynote speakers for ADAConf 2025: Diana Montalion and Dr Linda McIver! Both are pioneers in their fields: Diana in systems thinking and architecture; Linda in data and computer science education. Get early bird tix now and join us on 14 Nov: adaconf.org

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Domain-Driven Design Europe @dddeu.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

⏳ It is time to order your tickets for Strategic Domain Driven Design, a domain-focused, collaborative learning process. Come and collaborate with us to find out more about Strategic DDD: buff.ly/t2pqpd3 We start on June 10, 2025!

buff.ly

Strategic Domain-Driven Design

Chris Simon — One of the biggest challenges of DDD, and architecture in general, is breaking a large system down into loosely-coupled subsystems.…

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Contextive @contextive.tech · 21/05/2025

From a performance perspective, one user has > 120,000 terms synchronised from a data governance platform spread out over 12 glossary files. As of v1.17.0, Contextive works almost instantly for autocomplete and hover, even with such large datasets.

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Contextive @contextive.tech · 21/05/2025

e.g., if your term is Père, but you use `pere` in the code, Contextive will still show you the definition.

Code in the background - a public class Pere - with a Contextive hover panel showing the word Père and definition "Homme qui a des enfants" and usage example "Son père est gentil et généreux".

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Contextive @contextive.tech · 21/05/2025

There is dedicated support for the German umlaut and eszett. e.g. ö will match with ö, o or oe. ß will match with ß or ss.

Code showing a class called Strasse, with the Contextive hover panel showing the term "Straße" with definition "Relativ breiter, geteerter Weg für Autos usw" and usage example "In welcher Straße wohnt ihr?"

Code with class Ausloeser with Contextive hover panel showing term "Auslöser", definition "Vorgang, der einen anderen bewirkt" and usage example "Der Auslöser bewirkt den Beginn des nächsten Geschäftsprozesses"

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Contextive @contextive.tech · 21/05/2025

Contextive v1.17.0 is out now with a focus on better internationalisation and much better performance, especially with very large glossaries - release notes here: docs.contextive.tech/community/ch... Details in thread... #domaindrivendesign #ubiquitouslanguage

docs.contextive.tech

Change Log

Get on the same page.

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Analysis, Design and Architecture Conference @adaconf.org · 13/05/2025

Another #ThrowbackTuesday! Ross MacIntyre’s ADAConf 2024 talk gets into the roots of sociotechnical thinking. Post-war coal mines? Conway’s Law? Team Topologies? 📺 If it sounds intriguing, give it a watch: youtu.be/Kwrb7rWNtI0 📣And our CfS closes 30 June: sessionize.com/analysis-des... #ADAConf

youtu.be

Open Socio-Technical Systems - Human-Centred Architectures - Ross MacIntyre

The phrase social-technical is having a renaissance of late. It's great have language for how technology and people work together. Did you know there is a lo...

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Domain-Driven Design Europe @dddeu.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

DDD, TDD, living documentation, ... work, but are rarely used. Chris Simon will show how you can use Systems Thinking for technical excellence, at DDD Europe 2025:

2025.dddeurope.com

DDD Europe 2025 - Program

Chris Simon

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Domain-Driven Design Europe @dddeu.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

While we are working on the schedule ... We have already added most of our talks, labs and speakers: 2025.dddeurope.com/program/

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Contextive @contextive.tech · 20/03/2025

Contextive v1.15.0 is out! A big change to how we manage glossary files - you can now split your terms into multiple glossaries and put them in the folder hierarchy near the files they are relevant for - check out docs.contextive.tech/ide/guides/s... for details!

docs.contextive.tech

Setting up Glossaries

How to setup glossary files so they're useful in the right files

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