markjgsmith

Refactoring using LLMs

It‘s really quite amazing the sort of refactoring of your code you can get done when working with LLMs. They make it possible to see much much further into the future, and you can get a much better idea of whether something is possible or not, but also if you can't quite see the through line, but you know it‘s there, you can head off in the general direction, and work things out as you go.

This happened several times to me this week, I had a really good sense that it was possible, but it was really lot of very abstract changes, and I couldn't quite get a handle on it. Instead of fighting, I just said, what are the top 3 things we could do to the code base to put us in a position that would make the particular refactor possible. The LLM had a good sense of where we were heading as we'd been discussing it for a while, and so we charted a course and started on the top 3 things.

By the time we finished the top 3 things, it had cleared enough of the brambles and tangles that it was much much more obvious how the refactor could be done.

But don‘t fall into the perfection trap, you have to be pragmatic, there are times, where getting to stable ground is more important that having everything perfect. #

Another test post

Seems like the bug I fixed yesterday is properly fixed. It is at least with my links, this post tests it's also fixed in blog posts. #

Fixing bugs and weirdnesses

I hate to go on about it, but since I started blogging again it‘s been strange thing after strange thing after strange thing.

More bizarre and weird synchronicities than you can shake a stick at. I just fixed a bug in my review and approve workflow, the sort that you only find when you have it running in production. It took me all day yesterday to debug and write the fix. Anyhow I was just about to push the code to production and suddenly all my shells across my whole machine suddenly become unresponsive. All of them in Vscode, and all in iTerm2 and even the system Termnal. Had to reboot. That's two reboots in two days.

I was just about to write a test post to test things out, so this is the test post. I think I prefer the dull and boring test posts. Does everything have to be a high wire act? #

Oddities trending

Sharp and noticeable uptick in let's call them oddities, or weirdnesses occuring around me since I started blogging again. I don't want to get into much detail, but sometimes it's best just to note it and move on. Hopefully things will settle down a bit in due course. #

Polymarket and perps

I see Polymarket is adding perpetual futures, otherwise known as perps, to their platform. I can‘t say I fully understand how these work over and above the notion that you can bet on future prices of things which you can use to hedge against things happening or not happening to you, or your investments. Polymarket has been making headlines the past few months, people are up in arms about all this "crazy" betting that is going on everywhere. It strikes me that all these angles are missing the real story, that regular people can start hedging things, something previously only really available to high net worth individuals.

What will the world look like when literally everyone is hedging everything? I find this notion mildly terrifying, but I'm not sure if it's terrifying because of the craziness or terrifying because of it's opposite. Maybe if everything is perfectly hedged, nothing is interesting and exciting. How likely is all this to have an impact?

In the short term probably not huge, but a few weeks back I spent a few hours talking with an LLM about all this and throwing around some ideas about creating a home grown hedging application, all written in Typescript. I have to say it was quite interesting, and the LLMs have all the patterns analysed and know about all the best ways of tracking things, and they are incredibly good at coming up with some general rules, throwing things into buckets, so you can actually make some interesting allocations and stay on top of things.

But I also go the sense that it could very easily become all consuming. Do we really all want to become AI powered traders? #

More weird internet connectivity issues

More very very bizare internet connecivity issues. Just another note into the void in case this is the end again, so someone knows how it went down. :( #

Cool things about my new blogging tool

There are a lot of cool features in my new blogging tool. Here are some of the top of my head:

1. Render anything, from individual posts to full blown websites.
2. Integrates with the writing tools you already use today.
3. Templates for pages but also file paths, for maximum flexibility.
4. Automatically generate frontmatter for your markdown files.
5. It‘s agnostic so you can use any template rendering engine.
6. Supports partials and cross engine calling.
7. Add functionality using toolpacks accessible from inside the templates.
8. Blueprint based workflow engine you can use to create assets of any shape.
9. Attach logic to templates to explode out many output files from one input template.
10. Run javascript middleware stacks at key places in the render pipeline, integrate with anything.
11. Transform data on the way in before it hits your templates.
12. Extreme debugability, easily see how data flows through the render pipeline.
13. Integrates with Github for atomic and batch review and approve based publishing workflows.
14. Dispatch rendered assets to external destinations with custom deliveries.
15. Easily cleanup your local workspace with custom cleaners.

There‘s a lot more too.

It‘s the fastest way to get from idea to published, completely remove all the tedium from writing online.

I‘m using it right now to write all my posts. Each one gets it‘s own git branch, automatically and uniquely named. You can bulk push all your branches to Github, and then the workflow side picks up and your content goes through a PR based workflow, each item can be review and approved, or auto-merged.

Seems to be working pretty well so far. #

The return of allergies

It was to be expected I suppose, no sooner than I have started writing again and the world around me is angry. Always angry about something. The world is angry I don't do what it wants. It's also angry when I actually do what it wants. It can't make up it's mind. It's really quite unbelievable, like some sort of evil clockwork. Like a heat seeking missile, you just know the moment you see it off in the distance, that no matter what you do, that it's going to get you in one way or another, eventually.

Also the allergies are back. What a surprise.

Really trying to keep upbeat about things, but that easier said than done when the world is angry and your face is on fire and leaking. #

Twitter blocking my auto-poster

There were two issues getting all the gears in my blogging setup working again after a few months of not posting. Both related to the social media auto-poster Github action workflow that runs every day to post links to various social medias to new posts on the blog. Bluesky and Mastodon still worked perfectly, but Nostr and Twitter were both erroring.

I figured out the Nostr error quite quickly. Looks like some of the relays I had been using to post messages had gone offline. I updated to a more recent list of relays and posts began flowing again.

But the Twitter blockage was much more involved. I spent the morning navigating the quite complex developer portal, and regenerating an absurd amount of API keys and secrets and bearer tokens, and deleting my app and recreating it. Still authentication errors. Eventually went to the billing page and there was a note that said free tier accounts can no longer access the API.

Ok well I guess Twitter doesn't value my content much. Looks like, for the moment at least, none of my posts will be flowing through Twitter.

Kind of disapointing. #

Really really weird connectivity issues

I'm having the strangest connectivity issues all of a sudden. Some web browsers on my machine can't load any web pages at all. Others can load some pages, but not others.

Trying to troubleshoot it with the help of some LLMs but of course the connectivity issues mean it's very difficult to do anything at all because the sessions keep disconecting.

I haven't installed any software or made any configuration changes recenrtly.

Anyway just posting this in case the world is about to end or something. I hope not. #

Connectivity restored

Well after several about an hour troubleshooting, the conclusion from the LLM was that the networking stack on my laptop was hosed.

I rebooted and everything seems to be working again. I can‘t even remember that happening a single time before on this machine.

Kind of strange it should happen right after my first blog posts in several months. Such is life sometimes. And every time also. #

On the bright side...

My blogging setup is working pretty well. Some posts about that to follow soonish. #

Test from Android

Last night's test post actually worked pretty well. There were a few things that needed reconfiguring in the production environment, but it essentially worked. Today I'm getting it working from my Android phone. Again some slightly annoying configuration changes to do with environment setup, but the code looks like it's working. #

Boring and uneventful test post

It‘s been a while. I‘ve been busy building a blogging tool.

I know the way these test posts tend to go, chances are it‘s not going to work first time, so I'll refrain from writing much.

Might post a few links too... #