Matthew Boston

<h2 id="the-rubber-stamp">The rubber stamp</h2> <p>This site gets them too.

<h2 id="agents-guess">Agents guess</h2> <p>A model produces the most plausible next chunk of code.

<h2 id="one-axis-isnt-enough-anymore">One axis isn’t enough anymore</h2> <p>Martin Fowler’s <a href="https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TestPyramid.html">test pyramid</a>, and Ham Vocke’s <a href="https://martinfowler.com/articles/practical-test-pyramid.html…

<h2 id="two-kinds-of-dead-platforms">Two kinds of dead platforms</h2> <p>The first kind of dead platform is the one that said yes too often.

<h2 id="the-default-mode-is-wrong">The default mode is wrong</h2> <p>The typical workflow with an AI coding agent goes like this: describe the feature, let the agent generate code, review the output, ship it.

<h2 id="the-velocity-trap">The velocity trap</h2> <p>There’s a seductive metric in software engineering: how fast can we ship?

<h2 id="the-old-review-model-is-breaking">The old review model is breaking</h2> <p>Code review used to mean reading diffs line by line.

<h2 id="the-old-model-is-one-to-one">The old model is one-to-one</h2> <p>Traditional hiring is a bottleneck.

<h2 id="beyond-the-happy-path">Beyond the happy path</h2> <p>Most test suites walk the happy path.

<h2 id="weve-always-been-toolsmiths">We’ve always been toolsmiths</h2> <p>Software engineers have always customized their environments.

<h2 id="the-setup">The setup</h2> <p><img src="https://matthewboston.com/images/ai-dev-team-tmux.png" alt="Claude Code agents running in parallel across tmux panes, each fixing a different security issue"></p> <p>Each agent gets its own tmux pane.

<h2 id="the-foundation-of-autonomous-coding">The foundation of autonomous coding</h2> <p>That means linting, formatting, and tests must run locally and complete quickly.

<h2 id="the-current-state-of-clis">The current state of CLIs</h2> <p>Command-line tools are powerful but rigid.

<h2 id="the-problem-with-vibes">The problem with vibes</h2> <p>When developers first start using AI coding agents, the natural approach is to describe what you want and hope for the best.

<h2 id="the-left-pad-lesson-revisited">The left-pad lesson, revisited</h2> <p>In 2016, a developer unpublished an 11-line npm package called left-pad, and half the JavaScript ecosystem broke.

<h2 id="the-shift">The shift</h2> <p>AI just sped that up.

<h2 id="the-problem-i-found">The problem I found</h2> <p>The app was a vibe-coded Google Calendar tool called <a href="https://github.com/gabrielvaldivia/big-year">big-year</a> that was picking up traction fast.

<h2 id="the-temptation-to-skip-the-basics">The temptation to skip the basics</h2> <p>Just because a model wrote it doesn’t mean we can skip the basics.

<h2 id="the-setup">The setup</h2> <p>The idea was simple: embed a subtle instruction in my LinkedIn profile that a human would skip right over but an AI would follow.

<h2 id="the-dumb-zone">The dumb zone</h2> <p>Dex Horthy’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?

<h2 id="the-problem-with-commit-messages">The problem with commit messages</h2> <p>We all know what good commit messages look like.

<h2 id="the-fallacy">The fallacy</h2> <p>One of the Fallacies of Distributed Computing is “the network is reliable.”

<h2 id="the-intention-is-good">The intention is good</h2> <p>We want systems that can adapt.

<h2 id="raising-the-floor-not-just-the-ceiling">Raising the floor, not just the ceiling</h2> <p>Most engineering conversations focus on the ceiling: how fast can the best team ship, how elegant can the architecture get, how sophisticated can the tooling…

<h2 id="the-pressure-to-ship">The pressure to ship</h2> <p>Every engineering organization feels the pull toward speed.

<h2 id="density-is-a-readability-tax">Density is a readability tax</h2> <p>Dense code feels efficient.

<h2 id="the-zen-got-it-right">The Zen got it right</h2> <p>“Flat is better than nested” is one of the principles from the <a href="https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/">Zen of Python</a>, but it applies far beyond Python.

<h2 id="the-review-cycle-problem">The review cycle problem</h2> <p>Every six months, the same ritual.

<h2 id="the-distinction-matters">The distinction matters</h2> <p>These two words get used interchangeably, but they mean different things.

<h2 id="complexity-is-the-default">Complexity is the default</h2> <p>Complex code is easy to write.

<h2 id="the-zen-got-it-right">The Zen got it right</h2> <p>“Explicit is better than implicit” is one of the core principles from the <a href="https://peps.python.org/pep-0020/">Zen of Python</a>, but like <a href="https://matthewboston.com/blog/flat-is-b…

<p>Consider the following for table <code>articles</code>.

<h2 id="the-problem">The problem</h2> <p>I have 2 services, let’s call them <code>foo-service</code> and <code>bar-service</code>.

<h2 id="cond">cond</h2> <div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight clojure"><code><span class="p">(</span><span class="k">cond</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">&gt;</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="mi">…

<p>For example, say we have 100 cities all with a daily temperature reading for every day of the last year.

<p>Here it is in all its glory just before I’m about to slice it open.

<h3 id="why-do-null-values-not-exist-in-datomic">Why do null values not exist in Datomic?

<p>First off, if you’re not familiar with <a href="http://clojure.org/protocols">Protocols</a>, I suggest you go check out the documentation.

<p>When using <a href="https://mixpanel.com">Mixpanel</a> it’s best not to send events while in development, staging, demo, or QA environments.

<h3 id="how-to-define-a-protocol">How to define a protocol</h3> <div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight clojure"><code><span class="p">(</span><span class="nf">defprotocol</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">Drives</span><span class="w">…

<p>If you aren’t familiar with the <a href="http://groovy.codehaus.org/Null+Object+Pattern">Null Object Pattern</a>, I suggest taking a look now.

<p>Consider the following:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight ruby"><code><span class="k">class</span> <span class="nc">Greeter</span> <span class="no">HELLO</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s2">"Hello"</span> <span class="…

<p>I started this blog to write about what I learn and think about as a software engineer.