First impressions of Claude Fable
Today I tried Anthropic’s latest model, Fable, for the the first time. I asked it to run a full code review of the core Go code of rqlite. Fable reject my first prompt as unsafe – review the rqlite code…
Philip O'Toole
Software engineering, distributed systems, databases, and the teams that build them
Philip O'Toole
Software engineering, distributed systems, databases, and the teams that build them
Tag ai
Humanoid robots won’t surprise us when they arrive
Today at Lowe’s I passed a Simbe robot doing inventory. A tall pole on a wheeled base, moving the aisles, looking at shelves. I was startled, but only because it appeared behind me. And then I felt nothing. No one…
The source code was the moat. But not anymore
Last week I started using some of the new coding agents properly. Not in a careful, experimental way, but properly — for three days on rqlite. Claude Code. Copilot CLI. Tools I had yet to fully integrate into how I…
Discovering git worktrees
While working with Claude Code, I quickly needed it to operate on multiple versions of the rqlite codebase at the same time. Cloning the repository repeatedly would have worked, but it felt wasteful.
Agentic coding with Claude and Copilot
After many months of direct ChatGPT use, I’ve finally started coding with the help of Copilot and Claude Code. It’s definitely an intriguing experience. The biggest difference so far? I’m going to hit my Claude Code Pro limits pretty quickly,…
Why talking to LLMs has improved my thinking
I’ve been surprised by – and enjoy – one aspect of using large language models more than any other. They often put into words things I have long understood, but could not write down clearly. When that happens, it feels…
Tokens & Tactics: Scaling Yourself Horizontally with AI
I was recently interviewed by Noah Brier for his BRXND Tokens & Tactics AI newsletter. Noah and I used to work together a few years ago at Percolate so it was good to connect again. You can check out the…
My development team costs $41.73 a month
Two years ago, I appeared on Contributor, a podcast hosted by Eric Anderson of Scale Venture Partners. I was there to talk about rqlite, the open-source database I maintain.
The Developer’s Manifesto for the Age of LLMs
We built the old software systems by hand. Line by line. Module by module. That era is ending. Something profound is happening. For the first time in the history of software, we are not the only entities capable of understanding…
GPT is writing the GitHub issues, Copilot is fixing them
rqlite is a lightweight, open-source, distributed relational database written in Go. It uses SQLite as its storage engine and Raft for consensus. Last week, I wrote about my experience with language models, how they evolved from simple Python helpers to full-blown design partners and even…
rqlite development: the Agents are here
rqlite is a lightweight, open-source, distributed relational database written in Go. It uses SQLite as its storage engine and Raft for consensus. I’ve been developing rqlite for about ten years, and until recently, the workflow hadn’t changed much. I write the code. Others contribute here…
Gemini-driven code reviews in GitHub
I recently installed the Gemini code review tool for GitHub. It’s free, and installation was easy. Today Gemini found its first real issue with my code. While the bug was very minor, it’s helpful to even have these minor bugs…
New Java client for rqlite
rqlite is a lightweight, open-source distributed relational database implemented in Go, and which uses SQLite as its storage engine. I have developed a new Java client for rqlite. It provides minimal abstraction and interacts directly with the rqlite HTTP API.…
New rqlite Go client
rqlite is a lightweight, open-source distributed relational database implemented in Go, and which uses SQLite as its storage engine. I’ve decided to code a new, high-quality HTTP client library for rqlite. My hope is that this library will be useful…
What did GPT-4 find wrong with the rqlite source code?
rqlite is a lightweight, open-source, distributed relational database written in Go, which uses SQLite as its storage engine. As part of the 7.14.2 release, I ran most of the source code through GPT-4. Let’s take a look at some of…
rqlite 7.14.2 released
rqlite is a lightweight, open-source, distributed relational database written in Go, which uses SQLite as its storage engine. 7.14.2 adds various bug fixes and improvements. Most of the rqlite source code was also run through GPT-4, and many of its…
Creating rqlite 7.14.0 with GitHub Copilot
rqlite is a lightweight, open-source, distributed relational database written in Go, which uses SQLite as its storage engine. 7.14.0 has been released and adds comprehensive support for Mutual TLS. What makes this release of rqlite different is that much of…
Stephen Wolfram on ChatGPT
Stephen Wolfram has published an eminently readable description of what ChatGPT does, how it’s designed, and offer some insights into why it appears to work so well.