Simon Willison's blog offers a mix of technical tutorials, data analysis projects, and reflections on technology and society. With a focus on Python, SQL, and web development, Simon shares insights into building web applications, working with data, and exploring emerging technologies. Developers can learn about data visualization, API design, and software engineering best practices, gaining inspiration and practical knowledge to advance their careers.

Simon Willison

Simon Willison shares highlights from a fireside chat at the Pragmatic Summit on agentic engineering. He covers the stages of AI adoption for developers, from asking ChatGPT questions to agents writing more code than the developer. Key topics include: trusting AI output by treating it like a professional service team, making TDD effectively free with agents (and why tests are now non-negotiable), using manual testing via curl and his Showboat tool, conformance-driven development to reverse-engineer standards, code quality trade-offs in vibe coding vs. maintained projects, prompt injection and the 'lethal trifecta' security risk, sandboxing agents safely, the importance of codebase templates for consistent agent output, and the impact of AI-assisted programming on open source ecosystems including junk PR floods and collapsing demand for component libraries.

My fireside chat about agentic engineering at the Pragmatic Summit