Daryl Ducharme 1/29/24 Daryl Ducharme 1/29/24

Recent Readings 29th of January, 2024

When the new year started, I read some articles and have been planning on writing my first recent readings post of the year. Then came the planning and rehearsing for a Duet AI virtual event on the 24th of January that took up all my brain space for a few weeks. I'm proud of the work Chloe Condon and I put into that, so check it out if you haven't seen it yet.

The recent readings for this article, are all (mostly) tech related but look for some more varied content soon. There are some interesting articles I've added to my queue.

The past few months have been hectic. My team at work has evolved from a media and content creation team to developer advocacy team focused on North America. This means that I'll be traveling to conferences and events, spreading the good word of Google Cloud. This didn't mean we were done making content. Our team pushed through the end of the year to make several videos showing the different ways someone might use Duet AI including some videos showing how to get started. So, I decided to take a break from writing about things I was reading and focus on that.

The recent readings for this article, are all (mostly) tech related but look for some more varied content soon. There are some interesting articles I've added to my queue. With no further gilding the lily, and without any more ado; here are my recent readings:

LLMs and Programming in the first days of 2024 - We are at an exciting time with LLMs and the AI that uses them. Now that the hype of 2023 showing that there are tools and models to be used, now the question is, "What do we do with this?" This article answers with some poetic descriptions of LLM based AI.

... if this erudite fool is at our disposal and answers all the questions asked of them, things change. Current LLMs will not take us beyond the paths of knowledge, but if we want to tackle a topic we do not know well, they can often lift us from our absolute ignorance to the point where we know enough to move forward on our own.
The myth that remote work stifles innovation and creativity is gaining ground–but the same evidence shows that it was only true in the pre-2010s workplace - The philosophical arguments between remote work and return to office mandates will probably still be going on for a while. The more we look at the data, though, the more we see the patterns are different now that we live in a technically more advanced world than we did just a decade and a half ago. Many of the things that used to be the Truth then are misinformation now.
Ditch ‘UX’, it’s time for Product Experiences. - This article starts out with, "UX is dead, and that's great news!" which is probably more click bait than actual substance for this article. However, what this article does cover is the relationship between UX designers and Developers. Perhaps my career path, that started working in a design heavy agency, had me understand the importance of this partnership, but I really loved what this article was saying. It covers what both designers and developers need to understand about the other role to create a great experience for users and for the people working on a project.
The 9 Principles of Better Stories - As someone who has been a songwriter, a professional wrestler, and an improviser; I understand the power of good storytelling. In fact, as a developer advocate I think this will be very important to help communicate between developers and the teams making the products they use. This was less of an article and more of a static site designed to help you understand the basics of good storytelling. So, take look and learn more about the 9 principles to improve your communication in business and life.
The End of Front-End Development - Here's another article with a bit of a click bait title, but it does so to tell a good story. 2023 saw so much hype around AI that some front end developers are worried it will make them obsolete. At this point I don't see that happening, and neither does the author of this article. What we both see are ways in which AI is going to make the quality of our life as we work, much better.
CSS :has() pseudo class - As someone who has wanted this on many projects, only to find I couldn't count on it being in major browsers, CSS can now confidently use the :has() pseudo class. Instead of just using selectors based on what you are a child of, now you can make selectors that see what children they have.
Waymo’s driverless cars are finally ready for the highway - The Verge - One of my fears in life is actually cars. Because of this, I have been really watching the various brands of driverless vehicle technology with excitement. Though my employment may be making me biased, the articles I read tend to have me follow Waymo with the most excitement. They've been the most conservative when it comes to putting the tech on the road with real passengers and this has lead to a very good track record of safety. The fact that they feel confident having driverless rides that will go on the freeway is a very good sign. Now, if we could only get them in Seattle.
Attacks on machine learning models - LLMs and the AI that uses them are very cool. But, like any new technology, they are also a new attack vector, or rather have two attack vectors. Like other software there are code vulnerabilities but the data behind the models can also be attacked. I find security related articles fascinating because you almost have to think entirely different than a dev to see vulnerabilities. Yet another reason LLMs and AI are tools that humans need to use as tools with the understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
How to get 💩 done as a software engineer - Yes, that's an emoji in the title. With all productivity books and article you have to read them not as the truth, but as possibly useful and may need some tweaking. As someone who is neurodivergent, many of these tips and tricks are not solutions for me. So have a look at this article. Remove the measures he has, except as comparison to see what could work for you, and if anything sounds like it is worth a try, go right ahead.

Daryl Ducharme 10/30/23 Daryl Ducharme 10/30/23

Recent Readings 30th of October, 2023 (#1)

In an effort to read, learn, and share like I used to I'm going to start blogging a reading list. This is inspired by one of my skip level (multi times removed) manager's own almost daily reading list. I'd love to say I'm going to do this even weekly, but now I know I've got ADHD and keep my interests and activities diverse. Thus, I've named it Recent Readings.

Most of the articles in Recent Readings will be tech & software development related, and all of this list's are. But remember, I did I keep my interests diverse and some of those may slip in as well. It's always good to keep ourselves well rounded. So, here are some recent articles that I have read.

Thoughts on techno-optimism - It's easy in today's day and age to be either jaded by what tech will do with our future, or caught up in the hype of it. This article looks at some different ways you might look at our techno-future with a positive lens. I found myself to be mostly active-normative with a bit of passive-positive.
AI Is Becoming a Band-Aid over Bad, Broken Tech Industry Design Choices - Right now the AI hype is loud. It has actually been behind the scenes for a while too. When something becomes the new hotness in tech it often falls into the, "My only tool is a hammer so everything looks like a nail" problem. This article goes into some places, especially UX, where this is the case. Yes, AI is powerful, but maybe we can improve our design to improve experiences.
8 ways we're making daily tasks more accessible - I'm intensely interested in user experience(UX), and fascinated by the ways accessibility(a11y) affects everyone's life. This goes over some of the latest ways Google Maps, Search, and Chrome are improving all our experiences by making things more accessible.
Interviews in the Age of AI: Ditch Leetcode - Try Code Reviews Instead - I saw this article the day after I had to be the interviewer for a candidate. I'm not really a fan of the way interviews go because I want everyone to succeed, or at least show their best more clearly. This is an alternative I had never thought of before, but it does represent more of a software engineer's workday than leetcoding. Also, it allows for more of a conversation where you can hear how the candidate thinks. Speaking of which, have a read and let me know what you think.
How the microservice vs. monolith debate became meaningless - The world of tech is filled with little squabbles between the best language, framework, methodologies, and more. It can be really difficult to parse all of it to find a best practice. So, which is better, using microservices or all your code as a monolith? Read on to see how the debate has evolved.
MMO Architecture: client connections, sockets, threads and connection-oriented servers - As someone who has worked in the games industry (never on a true MMO) and played many MMOs, this was a fun read for just seeing the way problems were solved when the obvious solutions didn't quite work as well after first glance.
Top 3 SWE Skills I Picked Up On The Job - As someone who has been in tech since 2005, I do the math and am surprised how long I've been working in the field. Many days my impostor syndrome makes me feel as if I'm still a novice. Articles like this are a good way to both solidify what I have learned and help me find words for when I mentor others.

Thanks for checking out my first set of Recent Readings. Please, let me know if these articles gave you any interesting thoughts. Or, perhaps, you've written something yourself that I might find worth reading.