Loading…

Issue 280: We wanna know what dev is

And we want you to show us! The 2025 Develop Survey is now open, and we couldn't be more excited (for health reasons)! What are you and your fellow software engineers talking about? Are you talking about how the future of RAG systems is agents? Or how your favorite CRM system is building agents? We sure are! XX

Okay, maybe you're not talking about agents. We've got other conversations and articles for you. Want to find out why understanding AI limitations will help you succeed? Or maybe you've got an e-commerce front end and you want the dish on the latest improvements. Perhaps you're one of those door-number-three types and would like some TypeScript-powered software to explain your gut biome. XX

Maybe, just maybe, you're here to scroll through the questions and links that make you thinks. Check out how folks are handling AI-based cheating in workplaces and schools. Get boggled by the maximum number of cube faces you could see at any one time. Marvel at the ways that hawks are using human tech to hunt.

From the blog

Not just a vibe, the Stack Overflow Developer Survey is really here

This year, we're not just collecting data; we're reflecting on the last year of questions, answers, hallucinations, job changes, tech stacks, memory allocations, models, systems and agents—together.

Getting rid of the pain for developers on Shopify

Ryan welcomes Glen Coates, VP of Product at Shopify, to dive into the intricacies of managing a developer-focused product, the challenges of backwards compatibility, and the implications of AI and LLMs in Shopify's development environment.

Understanding the limitations of AI is crucial for enterprise success

What challenges do organizations face when adopting AI, and why is understanding its limitations key to success?

A deep dive into building an agent framework for Salesforce

We’re always trying to make it easy for users to pick out the information they need and gain insights into their processes, so a natural language interface seemed like a dream.

“The future is agents”: Building a platform for RAG agents

Douwe Kiela, CEO and cofounder of Contextual AI, joins Ryan and Ben to explore the intricacies of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). They discuss the early research Douwe did at Meta that jump started the whole thing, the challenges of hallucinations, and the significance of context windows in AI applications.

WBIT #8: Typescript for gut biomes

Kyle is joined by his former colleague Tyler McEntee, now a senior software engineer at Jona, to talk about doing everything all at once at a startup.

Build blockchain apps with TypeScript. Join AlgoKit workshop

If you already know TypeScript, you can build blockchain apps on Algorand. Algorand's AlgoKit workshops walk through the basics of smart contracts. No blockchain background required, just curiosity.

Interesting questions

Do all irrational numbers contain each other?

Perhaps we could find a super-irrational number that is all numbers and then we can be done with math altogether.

How to handle a candidate's inappropriate use of 'AI' during an interview?

"At what point does AI go from being a tool to being a form of cheating?"

What is the maximum number of faces of a cube that you can see at the same time?

Try thinking inside the box here.

Least bad time to take an academic break

Like most mathematicians and developers, the asker would rather be a carpenter.

Links from around the web

U.S. sanctions cloud provider ‘Funnull’ as top source of ‘pig butchering’ scams

Now do the fake toll bill scams.

Dispatch from the trenches of the Butlerian Jihad

Before we scorch the sky, can we try pen and paper assignments first?

The recurring cycle of 'developer replacement' hype

Developers are always being replaced...by people who know the tools and make more money.

Street smarts: how a hawk learned to use traffic signals to hunt more successfully

Pretty soon they'll be able to solve CAPTCHAs too.


Ready to level up? Test your knowledge with coding challenges, have fun and pick up some additional skills along the way. Submit an entry.