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What I Got Wrong Building With AI
Three projects built with AI agents. One worked, one collapsed, one held. The variable was not the technology. It was the shape that existed before the code.
When the Architect Picks Up the Hammer
Something shifts when a senior technologist stops directing software to be built and starts building it himself, with AI as the pair. After four decades in software and twenty years away from the keyboard, the distance between intent and implementation finally collapsed. This is what that felt like, and what it revealed about experience, craft, and the future of building
Themes
The Return of the Builder
Intent, clarity, and the craft of building software when implementation gets cheap.
6 articles →
The Self-Driving Enterprise
How AI is reshaping enterprise software, from ambient ERP to autonomous workflows.
21 articles →
My Life with AI
A personal narrative of building alongside machines, from a TRS-80 to today.
3 articles →
Random Thoughts from the Trenches
Software craft, leadership, estimation, and whatever else is on my mind.
38 articles →Articles
The Philosophy of Self-Driving Enterprise Software – Rethinking How We Build Software
Enterprise systems should support people, not the other way around. Technology should extend human capability, not consume it. For too long, software has demanded that people conform to rigid structures, turning productivity tools into digital bureaucracy. AI-supported systems can reverse this. By operating on context rather than sequence, and relevance rather than rigid workflows, they reduce cognitive load and return time, focus, and agency to the people doing the work. This is not just about efficiency. It is about respecting human judgment, preserving meaning, and building systems that adapt to real work rather than forcing work to adapt to systems
Why Agentic AI Should Be an Evolution, Not a Revolution
U.S. private AI investment grew to $109.1 billion in 2024 – leading to an “AI arms race” in which many businesses scrambled to be the first to announce shiny new capabilities. But did some tech…
CFOs: Are you ready to let go and trust AI?
I’ve never wanted to sky dive or do a bungee jump, but when I read some industry commentary it feels like this is what CFOs are being asked to do when it comes to investing in AI tools . For example,…
Getting Ready for the AI-Fuelled Office
Everyone is talking about the impact that artificial intelligence (AI) is having (or is going to have) on the way we work. What a lot of these studies do not try to understand is what this will mean…
As AI goes everywhere, here is how you must frame opportunities and risks
The impacts of AI on how people work with it need to be considered with technical but also human-centric thinking
Small is beautiful in uncertain times
We are entering a period of experimentation and innovation as the latest crop of cutting edge technologies mature and are adopted at scale. This moment could be a huge opportunity for smaller…
The future of ERP is automated, conversational and very much in the cloud
Just to be different from every other article you read about technology this week, I am going to limit my take on AI to just a few sentences where it is most relevant.
ERP Implementation: 5 Ways to Handle Change
As organizations seek new enterprise solutions to meet evolving business needs , many are undertaking what can seem a daunting process: enterprise resource planning (ERP) system implementation. The…
Programming won’t go away but extensibility is a worthwhile substitute for many tasks
Programming has made more farewells than Frank Sinatra , but the difference being that “Old Blue Eyes” eventually played one final concert, whereas programming isn’t going to go away.
Data fundamentals first, automation second
There is a lot of excitement about technology’s potential to automate tasks making our lives easier and freeing us up to do more fun things. ChatGPT is the latest in a long line of excited debates –…
Back to Basics: 2023 ERP Trends and Predictions
In a year marked by uncertainty, organizations are looking for ways to reduce operating costs and streamline processes. Efficiency is on the mind of every business leader. Deploying automation to…
Integration Isn’t Enough: The Business Case for Integration-as-a-Service
Organizations use a variety of applications to handle business tasks, and at the center of many point solutions is the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. In an ideal state, data from various…