iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

"Ah, but Jason, without seeing their AI harness, how can you be so sure it needs human intervention to be reliable?" The same way I don't need to check every horse to know that horses can't do calculus.

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"Waterfall is the appropriate tool for any environment where benefits realization is clearly understood, the final design can be engineered up front, and job steps can be sequenced before work begins." Otherwise known as "never".

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Never before in human history have the words "What problem does this solve?" been more pressing.

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The Trandalorian @charliejaneanders.com · 30/09/2026

How about we do good work *and* we enjoy doing it? A worrying number of people don't seem to know either of those are options, let alone both.

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Reposted by Jason Gorman

I really do think tech crossed a line at some point between "helping you do the things you want to do" on the one hand, and "helping you do the things tech wants you to do" on the other. At this point, we're all contorting ourselves to live how the tech industry thinks we should be living.

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Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

That expression you have while witnessing spectacular incompetence.

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Digger is getting terrible reviews. That could mean it's a terrible movie. Or it could be a truly great movie. Ahead of its time. Move critics don't exactly have a great track record of distinguishing.

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One useful thing I've gained from this age of "AI" is a heads-up on people in my industry who will gladly drink the Kool-Aid. I wish them the best of luck after the bubble bursts.

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Made an early start today to make a 5 pm Zoom about "humanless" code reviews organised by a well-known software company. Said in the chat that I'm here for the data. No data. So I'm not there. Reality isn't a fucking debate.

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In the average week I have to explain that "Continuous Delivery" means "shippable at any time". It hasn't escaped my attention that the explanation of the practice has one fewer syllables than the name. We're so bad at this.

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Regular reminder that the large majority of development teams using AI coding tools are delivering less reliable software and taking longer to get it into production. That's the reality.

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codemanship.wordpress.com

If there's a smarter way - a more predictable, more reliable, *cheaper* way - why would you not take it? You won't hurt Claude's feelings because you pressed Shift + F6 instead of asking it to rename that function. codemanship.wordpress.com/2026/09/30/d...

Deterministic When Possible. Probabilistic When Necessary. Human When Cheaper.

One inescapable conclusion I’ve had to draw observing our industry over the last couple of years is that the AI thing isn’t about productivity. If it was, teams would be looking for way…

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I think there's a good case to be made that folks using LLMs to do things they already have tools for that are quicker, more reliable and require many orders of magnitude less compute have lost the plot. See also: prompts for code that are longer than that code.

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codemanship.wordpress.com

Added a new section on LLM code reviews. Spoiler Alert: they not done good at them. And the bigger the diff, the worse they done - unsurprisingly, given what we know about the effect of context size. codemanship.wordpress.com/2026/08/12/a...

AI Software Development – What Does The Data Say?

I’m currently pulling together a bunch of sources – that are mostly recent – on the topic of LLMs and their use in software development. Some are peer-reviewed studies. Some are i…

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Theo Priestley @theopriestley.net · 29/09/2026

Governments of the world should pass laws renaming Donald J Trump. He won't mind. That's how it works now, apparently.

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Reposted by Jason Gorman

Every AI CEO sounds like this.

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A scenario where the hyper-scalers persuade the US government to ban Chinese models and models you can host on consumer hardware because "safety" and then promptly go bust is entirely possible.

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The difference between tech and business elites and the average person? I'm not sure the average person sees creativity as a purely economic activity or a chore.

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27 degrees C on the 29th of September

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Your Cloud-based LLM goes down. Without it, you are blocked and can't work. Congratulations. You've been left behind.

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codemanship.wordpress.com

A growing body of evidence strongly indicates that *reliable* long-horizon agent autonomy is a highly improbable fantasy. An increasing number of us have abandoned ambitions in that direction, and are looking for the value/cost sweet spot instead. codemanship.wordpress.com/2026/09/29/t...

The Agentic Sweet Spot? The Human IS The Loop

In recent weeks, I’ve been hearing more and more chatter signaling disillusionment with agentic programming, as increasing numbers of once-upon-a-time very pro-agent folks walk back to taking…

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Jason Gorman @jasongorman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Always worth reading the fine print. e.g., people citing a "study" done by someone at ThoughtWorks that concluded that asking agents to do TDD produced no discernible benefit. If you read the blog post, they actually failed to get the agent to follow the TDD discipline. Not the same thing.

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A monday reminder that the 80s saw some of the best-produced and engineered albums www.youtube.com/watch?v=69UY...

youtube.com

ryuichi sakamoto - steppin' into asia

YouTube video by pingu87

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Reposted by Jason Gorman

Dylan Beattie @dylanbeatt.ie · 28/09/2026

I'm playing a gig. An actual Serious Gig with Proper Musicians and no comedy songs about JavaScript. You should come. It'll be awesome. Hope & Anchor in Islington, Friday October 2nd, doors 19:30, music starts 20:30. Tickets £8 in advance / £10 on the door. www.eventbrite.com/e/angel-stor...

ANGEL STORM: ALL STAR LIVE ROCK COVER BAND

Demon, Rory Gallagher, Billy Idol, Peter Frampton, Rush, Cream, Genesis, Soundgarden, Aerosmith, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, Scorpions... and many more.

(The typography on "Peter Frampton" is particularly exquisite.)

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Jason Gorman @jasongorman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Heads up! <thing that I was telling you 2 weeks ago you had to get on board with or get left behind> is dead. Anyone who isn't <thing I saw Boris Cherney talking about this morning> will get left behind.

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Jason Gorman @jasongorman.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Tip for AI and software engineering researchers: hang out on LinkedIn, and it won't be long before you see someone make a completely unsupported claim that could make a great research study.

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Reposted by Jason Gorman

Luke Ontario @coolhand.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Oh shit. THAT is worse than I realized

We are spending almost five billion more on AI related construction and ten billion dollars less on other private construction since 2024

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apeswithhobbies.bandcamp.com

Enjoying listening to my own stuff. That's the first sign of madness. apeswithhobbies.bandcamp.com/album/love-s...

Love Songs From A Gilded Age, by Apes With Hobbies

6 track album

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Refactoring is the secret handshake.

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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026

"Ah, but Jason, that study was published 20 nanoseconds ago. AI has improved leaps and bounds since then."

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Reposted by Jason Gorman

I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility

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Reposted by Jason Gorman

Kevlin Henney @kevlin.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I'm giving the opening keynote (2026-10-20) and also a preconference workshop (2026-10-19) at JDD in Kraków next month. jdd.org.pl jdd.org.pl/workshop2

jdd.org.pl

Principle Misunderstandings Workshop with Kevlin Henney · JDD 2026

All-day Principle Misunderstandings workshop at JDD 2026. Separate tickets required.

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Reliable long-horizon autonomous agent workflows are science fiction.

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If you needed to gauge just how capable executives are of stupidity, consider how so many of them seem to have failed to realise that senior software developers were once junior software developers.

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