iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 31/08/2026

Prototype-plan-stack in a paragraph

Screenshot from blog post: In the past few months, we’ve settled on a development pattern we call prototype-plan-stack. In the prototyping phase, 1-3 engineers implement a feature end-to-end in our codebase, prioritizing a working demo with reduced focus on some architecture/implementation details. Those engineers, paired with agentic coding assistants, might generate 5000-10000 lines of code without yet having a full understanding of how the code works. In a short planning phase, the engineers then take any feedback and reflections we have about the prototype and iterate with an agent to propose a plan to slice the implementation into 10+ pull requests that are stacked/dependent on one-another and small enough to each be reviewable in a sitting. In a final stacking phase, engineers review the individual PRs in the stack, shipping them in pieces they can digest and comprehend. As they review, they update the plan to include testing and architectural changes, making the stacking phase a relatively dynamic process.

Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 31/07/2026

In "Authorize, don't authenticate," I argue for the elimination of the login screen in applications that manage your personal data. You should be authorizing apps to access your data, not authenticating for the privilege of handing it over! blog.marcua.net/2026/07/31/a...

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 23/06/2026

Dear New York: Today is the day to work through the uncertainty and make some compromises. Go vote!

A floor decal in the shape of an arrow that says Vote NYC

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 06/05/2026

For designers to work outside a codebase, you have to keep wireframes and implementation in sync. To that end, I'm sharing Figmimic, a bookmarklet that copies any website or webapp into Figma in an editable state. Try it: marcua.net/minitools/fi... Blog post: blog.marcua.net/2026/05/05/f...

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 08/04/2026

Late last year, I gave a talk at Northeastern to students in a few software engineering classes about what's changing and what's staying the same for junior engineers in industry with the introduction of coding agents. Slides and notes here: blog.marcua.net/2026/04/08/a....

A timeline of the professional experiences a junior engineer used to develop over several years. Skills that used to take years to hone are now required in your first moments with a coding agent.

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 27/02/2026

If you find yourself in Las Vegas, The Punk Rock Museum is a pretty good place to go! It's like 50% nostalgia for whatever 1-2 decades of punk you liked, 50% stuff Fat Mike / NOFX liked or collected.

A photo outside a black building labeled "The Punk Rock Museum" in neon green, with a hat that says "SKA" at the bottom of the photo

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 26/02/2026

Just posted "Four questions agents can't answer: Software engineering after agents write the code" We're dedicating a lot of brain space to what coding agents can do, but it's equally important to consider what they won't accomplish for years to come. blog.marcua.net/2026/02/25/f...

A snippet from the introduction to the blog post:

Four questions agents can't answer

Software engineering after agents write the code

Feb 25, 2026

You’ve likely read countless words about how coding agents have massively changed software engineering. At the extreme, December 2025 was the turning point and we’re unlikely to write a line of code again. But amidst all this talk of change, it helps to understand what likely won’t.

I’m particularly interested in the questions agents can’t answer, doubly so if they are unlikely to answer them well in the coming years. Here are four such questions that blur the line between product management and software engineering. The questions reflect the fact that as coding agents cover more of the nitty-gritty of code generation, humans will be responsible for higher-level concerns. I think these questions will remain in the human domain for years to come:

What should we work on?
How much of it are we doing?
How do we do it well?
What’s getting in our way?

These questions are durable: we’ve encountered them since software engineering became a profession, and we’ll be responsible for them as long as we’re responsible for the products and systems we share with the world. The answers to these questions require judgment based on goals and constraints that are organization-specific, dynamic, and don’t live in some task management or issue tracking system you can integrate with. It’s hard to imagine an agent successfully synthesizing these disparate and context-specific inputs into answers.

What should we work on?

Companies tend to work at the intersection of what their users find valuable, what the business finds

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 11/12/2025

I’m excited to share Review, a bookmarklet that makes it easier for you to code review AI coding agents. The bookmarklet turns all unresolved comments on a GitHub pull request into a Markdown-formatted text blob that you can paste into your coding agent of choice. marcua.net/minitools/re...

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 01/10/2025

Beautiful nostalgic piece by @adityagp.bsky.social! Don't miss the end for some nice reflections. Aditya's just getting started! :)

A screenshot of the "Reflections and takeaways" section at the end of https://data-people-group.github.io/blogs/2025/09/30/ten-papers/.

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 27/09/2025

ayb now includes a web frontend! I hope this expands the set of people that can use ayb. The web interface lets you create databases, share them with collaborators, and query them from anywhere! More here: blog.marcua.net/2025/09/27/a...

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 17/08/2025

There's almost always a surprising nugget, usually multiple, in the acknowledgements section of a book/dissertation. Here's one from Manning Marable's "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention," for which he was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer prize in history.

A screenshot of a page of an electronic book, with this relevant quote: "In the last year in researching this book, I could not travel and I carried
oxygen tanks in order to breathe. In July 2010, I received a double lung transplant, and following two months' hospitalization, managed a full recovery."

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 29/05/2025

Things you can learn about a place from Google's automatically generated summary... (Also Less Than Jake is playing there June 17 if you're into that)

A screenshot of Google results that highlight the wrestling coach (not other notable people) of Wantagh, NY.

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 22/05/2025

Here's Rich in action!

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 16/03/2025

Heads up to anyone with a public GitHub repo: I got an email an hour ago that looks like "If you didn't attempt this login, click here." It's a phishing attempt that someone created by posting the issue to my GitHub repo, resulting in my getting a somewhat legitimate-looking email from GitHub.

A screenshot of an email.

Subject: [marcua/ayb] Notification (Issue #XYZ)

Content:
Security Alert: Unusual Access Attempt

We have detected a login attempt on your GitHub account that appears to be from a new location or device.
Login Information

Location: Reykjavik, Iceland
IP Address: 53.253.117.8
Device: Unrecognized

If you recognize this activity, no further action is required. However, if this was not you, we strongly recommend securing your account immediately.
Steps to Secure Your Account

Update your password to prevent unauthorized access: Change Password
Review and manage active sessions: Check Recent Activity
Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for additional protection: Set Up 2FA

Contact Support

If you need assistance or suspect a security breach, visit:
GitHub Security Support

Thank you for keeping your account secure.

GitHub Security Team

—
Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.
You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 03/03/2025

Well well well, if it isn't my good friend, overthinking brain, poking around not-for-public-consumption writing. Happy Monday @skamille.themanagerswrath.com :D.

A screenshot of the following text: I'm supposed to be writing in a stream of consciousness manner without self-editing, as this writing is just for my personal journal. That said, I started to think that what I'm writing above could turn into a blog post for public consumption and caught myself editing it, moving text around, preceding text with caveats, and freezing as I think about all of the holes people will make in this argument. That's not at all the point of this journal, so to unfreeze myself, I wrote this paragraph to get it out of my mind :).

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 29/01/2025

This POTUSA album cover is more relevant now than ever

The album cover for "Love Everybody" by The Presidents of the United States of America, in which a baby is holding up a sign that says "Love Everybody"

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 05/01/2025

What if it was easy for a user to create a personal database and authorize an application to access it? The user could maintain control of the database, and the application would gain access to the data for as long as the user wished. The post also covers some challenges to making this a reality.

A hand-drawn cartoon diagram in which both the user and the application have a database. The user authenticates their database to the application, which tracks that database in its own database. The application's database acknowledges the insertion to the application, which acknowledges the insertion to the user.

A hand-drawn cartoon diagram in which a user can request their data from their database, which responds "HERE!" without any interaction with the application.

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 05/01/2025

When Ted Codd imagined enterprise databases in the 1970s, storing company-controlled data in a company-controlled database was a reasonable choice. But for consumer applications, sharing your data with an application that then restricts, loses, leaks, or sells it doesn't make as much sense.

A hand-drawn cartoon diagram in which a user provides data to an application, which inserts it into a database. The database acknowledges the insertion to the application, which acknowledges the insertion to the user.

A hand-drawn cartoon diagram in which a user requests their data from an application, which responds "Nope!"

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 08/12/2024

Thinking about how disrespectfully the traditional application/database stack treats users’ data. (There’s a second diagram, but it will give away a future blog post:)) #databs

A two-part diagram. In part 1, a user gives their data to a server, which stores it in a database. In part 2, the user requests their data, and the server responds “nope.”

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 20/11/2024

Oh, the stories I have for you about replication slot lag for databases under heavy load

A graph in a sawtooth pattern that progressively grows taller and has steep drops that don't reach their previous lows

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 28/08/2024

If you evade a fare on a bus, we're going to fine or arrest you (especially if you are a person of color)! But like, if you hide your car's license plate from toll cameras, we'll like, urge third party marketplaces to like, not make that easy. NYC is doing great at increasing public transit usage.

Two headlines

1. Officials from the NYPD and MTA said they're launching a fare enforcement crackdown today on bus routes deemed to be "egregious" hot spots for fare evasion.

2. Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine is urging TikTok, Facebook and Craigslist to get rid of black markets selling "ghost plates" that drivers use to evade tolls.

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 15/12/2023

Feeling pretty smug about this one

A screenshot of a GitHub pull request

The branch name is no-i-dont-want-your-domain

The lyrics quoted at the top of the description are:
No, I don't want your number
No, I don't wanna give you mine and
No, I don't wanna meet you nowhere
No, don't want none of your time
- Chilli from TLC

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Adam Marcus @marcua.net · 11/11/2023

Finally wrapped up adding API keys/endpoint validation to ayb. ~600 lines of code that allows clients to...protect their databases:) github.com/marcua/ayb#r... I learned way more than I wanted to about API keys, including how to not actually store them in a database.

A screenshot of the documentation at https://github.com/marcua/ayb#running-a-client

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