Weeknote 784: Monumental

What I have learned this week:

The speed at which LLMs code-writing has advanced is really quite something. I spent a few hours over the weekend building an MVP for Random the App, and the pace at which I could create a fully functional Android app was really quite impressive. Artisan software development at the code level seems likely to become a niche activity soon. I’ll leave “soon” ambiguous…
Delivering Random the Workshop at Imperial College on Saturday was eye-opening. I had someone cheat the Winner game for the first time. Or at least, for the first time someone admitted to cheating.
The book launch on Wednesday evening was a life event. To the extent that I plan things, it went perfectly. The interview with Alice was spot on, the mix of people in the audience was wonderful. I’m remarkably proud of what Nick and I have done, and where it might go next.
Back to earth with a bump for the rest of the week, mind.
A fascinating conversation with Alex Defroand earlier in the week, and in particular about where value might lie going forward in the stages of the Double Diamond. Traditionally, most folk have generally only seen the last quarter as where things were really worthwhile. Will commoditised software development shift that left?
Whilst bid writing is increasingly AI-assisted, it doesn’t address the challenges of coordinating the different people who need to be involved. Maybe, even, it makes the collaboration challenges harder, although I can’t quite put my finger on why.
It’s time to write Random the Keynote. So I’ve made a start. Let me know if you’d like me to present it for you. It involves dice, Henry Ford, the human immune system, Elton John, the Venice Arsenale and butterflies.
Wednesday really was magical.