Ash Furrow
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LLMs Are Tools
I have an enormous respect for Rich Hickey; I think he’s one of the best thinkers among software developers. When I read his post ‘AI’ is Not a Tool (gist), I initially agreed. It felt like a compelling argument. But the more I thought about it, the more...
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One Year at Wealthsimple
One year ago, after reflecting on what I really wanted from my career (and what I didn’t want), I joined Wealthsimple. Time has absolutely flown by! And you know me, I can’t help but blog about it. I joined Wealthsimple with the role of caring about the...
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Radiating Intent
I had a new member of my team join recently and, when I met with them one-on-one for the first time, they complimented me on my standup updates. My team works remotely so standups are an important touchpoint. My colleague and I talked a bit more about...
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May You Live Forth and Prosper
Three years ago today, I was laid off from Shopify. Ever since, Star Wars Day has been an annual reminder of that difficult experience. Legally speaking, I have no opinions about my former employer. But… getting laid off was a truly awful experience, and...
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AI Coding Tools
I started writing this blog post as an attempt to collect and distill all my various thoughts and feelings about AI and AI coding tools. But the longer I took to write it, the more things kept changing, and the harder it became to fulfill that scope. So...
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The Over-Engineering Method
In Canada, “Engineer” is a protected term. I am a software developer, not a Software Engineer. There are valid reasons – historical reasons – to restrict who is a capital-E Engineer, but these reasons are at odds with how the term is commonly used today....
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Disintegrate, Reintegrate, Extrude
I wrote last week how my wife and I had to say goodbye to Clementine. Without going into detail, caring for our sick cat took a lot out of us. Since last summer, Clem needed some kind of daily medical care: ear drops, pills, special food, eye lube. Yes,...
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Goodbye Clementine
My wife and I said goodbye to our cat Clementine today. We had her for just four years – our time was cut short by cancer. Things have been up and down for months, but at the start of the year we changed priorities to keep her comfortable. Clementine and...
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The Imperial Units Strike Back
I lived in the United States for six years, during which time I refused to learn Fahrenheit. I was forced to give in to using inches because, unlike every tape measure I owned in Canada that had both inches and centimetres, every measuring tape I could...
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Upcoming Conference Talk
I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be speaking at the Swift Rockies conference for iOS developers next July in Calgary. This will be my first conference presentation in over five years! My talk is titled My Slow Return to a Swift Career. I’m pecking...
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