I'm going to my first Hackathon in a couple of years next week. Today I've watched some project demos from a recent Hackathon. They had 10 mins each and just gave a really bad presentation. I'm looking forward to giving a 90sec summary of what I do next weekend

Ooh, just found some early POC videos from a project two and a bit years ago. Some of that functionality still isn't in the released product. There's probably a reason I'm not a Product manager/owner...yet!

Ever thought about creating a digital twin for your landscape? www.prolandscapermagazine.com/2025/09/18/i...

TIL: GitHub lets organizations prevent accounts accessing some data via API that those users can get via the UI. I can see how that might be useful or necessary but it also stops some of my automated tools from working with some repos.

This, but also for "preview" www.mrlacey.com/2024/02/why-...

I wish there was an easy way to reclaim disk space taken up by old, unneeded NuGet packages. Does anyone have a better solution than deleting them all and redownloading them again when needed?

Congrats to all involved. (especially Michael) I never imagined I'd be considered a 4-time hall of famer in anything.

The next incremental improvement I'd like to see in LLM software creation is models based on quality over quantity. That it generates code that is insecure or inefficient or unnecessarily complex or doesn't test the thing it claims to test hurts everyone, regardless of experience or level of "vibe".

Crosse a threshold!

I asked Microsoft Copilot a question in the desktop app but when it tries to display the response it generated it causes the app to crash. Repeatedly. Even in different machines. Fortunately, I can view the response in a browser ok.

You started "this is more of a comment than a question" But you actually made an unjustified and unsubstantiated statement of you opinion.

Is [new] 'sample code' more for people or for LLMs to use as training data? Does it matter? What differences are useful or needed for these different audiences? #ThinkingOutLoud

Grrr. I wanted to try something out. I assumed "even if it doesn't work it'll make a good blog post" I assumed wrong. The blog post would just be complaining about how hard something that should be simple is and how Copilot couldn't help. Not blogging it to avoid upsetting people. :/

If you needed another reason to get off Windows 10, how about app launch performance--specifically for apps built with WPF Surprisingly, running on ARM isn't a guaranteed way to ensure that everything is faster. (But, ARM-based devices do have other benefits)

Interesting lyrics #YoureGonnaBeOk

Dear anyone, have you ever heard the expression "please disconnect your line" in anything other than the start of an MS Teams call? It still sounds weird to me but wondering if it's a cultural thing and a common phrase elsewhere..

Feeling a bit big headed but also disappointed. Listening to lots of experienced developers on podcasts talking about AI with a faux-authority based on other experiences but no new ideas, 6-months behind the latest concepts, and some things that have been proven false.

I've just written some VBA! It's like being back in the 90s

I've seen so many Android apps do different things with navigation and app lifecyle, the idea of what apps are _supposed_ to do is now lost on me. Does the "right way" even matter if every app does things differently? Or is this an example of a fundamental being overlooked?

"the joint managing director [...] said earlier estimates did not account for inflation or risk" And "early estimates never include contingency" So, almost guaranteed to be wildly inaccurate and lowered than necessary If you're going to estimate like that should you be in charge?

I'm currently writing a load of scheduled blog posts, but before I publish them, I don't think enough people have read this post about pizza and developers: www.mrlacey.com/2025/07/why-...

There's a new version of a popular IDE coming soon. In that the version number (increased major version) is showing up in public analytics (usage stats) does that count as a public announcement?

If your app allows long text entry, it's a much nicer experience for the person using it if you never forget what's entered without being submitted or cleared. Especially if the app crashes. Or if the user has to switch away

Pretending to be a "proper writer" and starting another project while on holiday. The first act of a short story was written by the lake today. I now approximate it'll come in at about 15-20k words. Eek.

Some people doubt the fear of success. I see it as the fear that if I'm really the best (or one of the best) in the “world” at something (anything) that would be very disappointing for the state of the world.

Dear everyone who contributes to open source projects (especially the ones I use) please know that I'm super grateful for all your time and dedication

At Ripples: Bristol, we focus on what enables teams to thrive Each session on the programme will be chosen not for its label or the framework it sits in, but for its ability to inspire a ripple effect. https://bristol.ripple.events/call-sessions

If someone claims something is "best practice" what's the etiquette on asking them to explain why?

Me the other day: this should be a short chapter Me today: how has this chapter become over 6000 words long?

🎉 Big news! We've secured a $3M, three-year sponsorship from @devolutions.net This sponsorship will allow us to speed up development, improve docs & tooling for all the community's benefit! 🚀 Read about it here: github.com/AvaloniaUI/...

Dear (any app that shows user generated content in, potentially, multiple languages) Why don't you let me filter by languages? Who benefits when you show content the viewer can't understand?

That my comment appeared twice may be the funniest thing I've seen today

If it's all built on temporary tech, smoke and mirrors, and you intend to rewrite all the code, have you really yet proved it's a *viable* product? Maybe. Maybe not

Is the fact that the Internet is so full of typos and spelling mistakes something that has helped LLMs cope with badly spelling so well?

On one of the post-it notes stuck around my office is one that says: If it's important, you need to get good at it! Equally valuable: understanding why that thing is important!

Oh, bluesky won't let me put pictures in chat messages. I'll have to ask @thejoefin.com in public if he thinks this will be useful. Yes, it's based on that file we spent many hours looking at. Room for improvement? (in the file, not this debug output-obvs)

There's something strangely satisfying about having to update code in a load of different places and Copilot can't work out what the required changes are. It's quite pleasant to not be constantly interrupted and left to update the code how *I* know it needs

Ok Side Quest #001 is live! Make sure you jump on tickets quickly as I think they're going to go fast. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/side-quest...

One of my regular conference complaints: PMs talking to developers but saying things every developer would already know but had to be explained to the PM who's presenting

Disappointed by the number of sessions from build where it feels like I'm watching bad amateur dramatics. Presenters simply repeating lines they've learned but don't understand and don't say in a believable way. :(

I went to Interesting 2025, I committed a rudeness, and I suffered as a result. www.mrlacey.com/2025/05/i-we...

Anecdote: I've noticed lots of sessions from build talk about fixing issues/bugs that were first opened/reported in 2019. What was so special about that year for uncovering lots of complicated/hard to fix bugs? Or is this just coincidence?

NotifyPodcastChanged: Working with XAML www.mrlacey.com/2025/05/noti...

Some people: "AI produces mediocre results" Some other people: "AI has made our work so much better" Both can be true!

"A fast car isn't rare, good drivers are." - Seth Godin Producing software isn't difficult, knowing how to do it so you get what you want and in a maintainable way is. - Me

I've been tinkering with improved #XAML syntax for #dotnetMAUI apps and focusing on AppThemeBinding. The results are less text and faster page loads without any loss of functionality! www.mrlacey.com/2025/05/impr...

Been doing some UI performance checks. It didn't match what I've been told. It didn't match what I expected. I can't believe what was best (fastest). Looking forward to retrying on more hardware before publishing....

It's official, after spending more time than I'm comfortable with looking at the bios of my PC, I'm going to need to upgrade hardware for it to run Windows11, so I better get a job soon so I can afford the parts

Sad to not be at any tech conferences in the next few weeks.

A "fun" new copilot agent experience: Doing the first task/step it added something that was needed. On the second task/step, it removed that and added some completely made up method call instead. Using AI/copilot/genie assisted coding means reviewing the code at each step, not just the end!