Opinion

Editorial

Why This Website Is a Newspaper

A note on the first edition. What the paper is, how it is set, and the three layers it is built on.

2024

Engineer Moves Very Large Dataset Across an Ocean, Lives to Write About It

A client needed its data in the EU instead of the US. What went wrong, what went right, and what to check before you start.

2023

Robots Fight Over Who Reviews Your Pull Request

A comparison of the AI agents that review pull requests, and which one earned a place in the workflow.

Merge Sort Explained; List Divided, Then Conquered

Part of a series on data structures and algorithms, in Python, for people starting out.

Linked List Learns to Look Both Ways

Implementing a doubly linked list in Python, following on from the singly linked one.

Tortoise Catches Hare Again, This Time Inside a Linked List

Floyd's cycle-finding algorithm, with the fable it is named after.

Blog Series on Algorithms Begins With One Node Pointing at Another

The first post in a DSA series: what a singly linked list is and how to build one in Python.

One Stop Shop for Feeding Documents to Language Models

Part four of a series on building with LLMs: the community data loaders at LlamaHub.

Local Man Automates His Own Social Media Presence

The story behind LLM Influencer, the tool that writes and posts content with no human in the loop.

Two Frameworks Combined; 64 Readers Approve

How to use LangChain and Llama-Index together, the most-read post in the series.

ChatGPT Given a Memory; Remembers What You Said Last Time

Adding conversation memory to a document chatbot using LangChain's memory classes.

Documents Now Answer Back, Tutorial Reveals

The first post of the series: feed ChatGPT your own documents and ask it questions.

2022

Not Everything Should Be Automated, Says Man Who Automates Everything

When a script saves time and when it only moves the work around.

Python Loved by Nearly Everyone; the Rest Explain Themselves

Why the language became the most popular in the world, and what its critics have a point about.

Algorithms: What They Are and Why Everyone Keeps Saying the Word

Notes on the opening chapter of the standard textbook, for people starting a CS journey.

Three Ways to Focus at Work; 45 Readers Briefly Stop Scrolling to Agree

Practical notes on staying on one task when everything else wants your attention.

First Job Is Frightening, Confirms Person in First Job

What nobody tells you before you start, from someone a year in and from a non-technical background.

Boring Tasks Handed to Cron; Cron Does Not Complain

What crontab is and how to schedule the tasks you keep forgetting.

A Beginner's Guide to MongoDB, Documents and All

Why document databases exist and how to get a first collection running.

One Terminal Becomes Many; tmux Credited

How a long-running job led to learning tmux, and the commands that stuck.

Algorithm That Catches Exam Cheats Explained, for Research Purposes Only

Edit distance between two strings, how it is computed, and where it is used.