software development Articles
The AI Collaboration Paradox
One of our teams at SEP has gone all-in on agentic development. I don’t mean they’re simply using AI tools heavily; I mean they’re deliberately redesigning their team processes, shared infrastructure, and ways of working around it. When I was talking to the team about their experiences, one thing kept jumping out at me: AI […]
AI Agent Collaboration Starts with the Right Mental Model
You’re probably treating your AI agent like a junior developer. I know I was. It makes sense, right? The framing shows up in genuinely respected places — OpenAI’s own prompt engineering documentation advises treating GPT models like “a junior coworker” who needs explicit instructions to produce good output; engineering teams at major consultancies have characterized […]
Where AI Fatigue Actually Comes From
If you’ve spent time with agentic development, you’ve probably felt that particular flavor of mental exhaustion that hits harder than the work seems to justify. I wasn’t stuck on a hard problem. I wasn’t debugging something gnarly. I was just… keeping up. And then suddenly I wasn’t. Steve Yegge calls this the AI Vampire: the […]
Why Your Software Feature List Will Change (And That’s a Good Thing)
Every software consultant has experienced this moment: A client arrives with a detailed feature list, meticulously crafted and approved through multiple layers of their organization. They’ve secured funding, aligned stakeholders, and are ready to build. There’s just one problem—that list is going to change. Significantly. I recently managed a project that perfectly illustrated this reality. […]
A Manager’s Guide to AI Adoption in Software Engineering Teams: Just Keep Prompting
AI tools for coding aren’t a nice-to-have anymore — they’re table stakes. At SEP, we recognized that early and gave engineering teams the green light to start using them, provided the tools met our security standards and our clients’. Once the green light was given, engineers across the organization were free to use AI in their work. The only stipulation: each […]
Planning-First AI Methodology: The Foundation of Successful AI Collaboration
Why starting with understanding, not code, is the key to unlocking AI’s full potential in software development Picture this: You’re 7 hours into your work day, you’re on your third cup of coffee, and the AI just generated 200 lines of code that compile perfectly… and do absolutely nothing you wanted. Sound familiar? If you’ve […]
The AI Coding Revolution: Why Your Development Team Needs to Invest Now or Risk Being Left Behind
A developer’s perspective on mastering AI coding tools for competitive advantage The software development landscape has undergone more transformation in the past year than in the previous decade combined. As AI coding tools evolve from novelty to necessity, development teams face a critical decision: invest heavily in learning these tools now, or watch competitors pull […]
Beyond Compare: The Diff Tool I Refuse to Live Without
I love boosting productivity. If you’re manually comparing files, squinting at Git diffs, or struggling to sync folders across servers, you’re wasting time and there’s a better way— it’s called Beyond Compare. I’ve been using this tool for over a decade, and I’ve paid for it with my own money. That’s how much I believe […]
Dodging Merge Conflicts in git
This article was originally posted on my personal blog under the same title, “Dodging Merge Conflicts in git.” Introduction Of all the source control management systems that have ever been created, git is certainly one of them. You’ve probably used it, and been burned by a particularly complicated merge conflict. Resolving merge conflicts can be […]
NeurIPS 2024 Developer Tools You Can Deploy & Use Today!
I learned about these open source and commercially licensed tools for developers at NeurIPS 2024. Most of the tools on this list are new to me, but not new to the world. You can deploy and use them today! …pssst – if your manager or your client would rather you make something from scratch instead […]
Agile Indy 2024 Trip Report
From the AgileIndy site: AgileIndy is a user group devoted to raising awareness, acceptance, and support to people who explore and apply agile values, principles, and practices to make building software solutions more effective, humane, and sustainable. This year’s conference took place on Friday October 18th at 502 E Carmel Dr, Carmel, IN 46032. A […]
AI Code Gen Tools Need Human Developers to Produce Good Code
Last year, AI code gen tools made a huge splash in the software development world. Again. Someone had the bright idea that “Hey, source code is text. Maybe we can generate that!”. What started as one big offering has grown to dozens of tools to write our code for us. These tools excite some, terrify others, and leave many wondering […]