Reading Notes #713

This week’s collection explores the practical side of AI, focusing on governance in multi-model environments and the security advantages of robust sandboxing. I’ve also included some foundational perspectives on and organizational goals, along with a look into the history of one of my favorite tools, VS Code.

AI

• James Shore: Are You Getting Your Money’s Worth from AI? (James Shore) - Interesting first post of a series. This one focuses on what we should or shouldn't measure to see and understand the performance of our teams using AI.

• Project HydraFusion: Frontier quality via multi-model orchestration - The GitHub Blog (GitHub Staff) - That looks very interesting, and it's available in the CLI via the experimental features.

• Below the Harness: Governing a Multi-Model, Multi-Harness World | Docker - Interesting thought about the future (probably not that far because it's about AI) and how we will interact or work with it.

• 6 Benefits of Sandbox Environments (Kevin Wittek, Srini Sekaran) - I really like how this post explains the security issues, how Docker sandboxes address the weaknesses, and how its sandboxes differ from others.

Programming

• The Story of VS Code | Official Documentary - A ninety-minute documentary about VS Code. From where the idea started to what we know it as today.

Books

Measure What Matters 

by John Doerr 

That book has been on my to-read list for a very long time. As someone who worked at Microsoft using many OKRs, I was comfortable with the topic. Nevertheless, it was interesting to learn how other people use it in many different contexts.

Reading Notes #702

This week’s compilation explores a mix of critical topics ranging from integrating AI models with SQL Server to navigating the complexities of Azure container troubleshooting. I’ve selected these particular articles because they offer practical ways to streamline your workflow and better understand the latest shifts in cloud infrastructure and software development.

Databases

• How to host an AI text embeddings model for SQL Server using Ollama (Greg Low) - Cool use of Ollama to get free AI with our databases.

AI

• Learn Anything With My /teach Skill (Matt Pocock) - I use AI to learn many times, but I didn't think doing a skill. Looking forward to trying it.

• How AI coding agents actually use your technology - Microsoft for Developers (Waldek Mastykarz) - A very interesting post that explains all the steps executed by VS Code harness when we submit our prompt. The post also provides some insights on why AI could still get bad results even if we provide SDK and MCP servers.

Cloud

• Troubleshooting Azure Container Apps and Jobs for .NET and Django Workloads | Microsoft Community Hub - First post of a series that covers the most frequent issues and provides methods to investigate and resolve the problems.

DevOps

• Open Source Observability: Tools, Setup, and Trade-offs (Spence Taylor) - A post that introduces many different tools used to collect or display information about logs and metrics, with potential challenges and more.

Miscellaneous

• How I made a 45-video course without wanting to die (Salma) - Doing a series that will work definitely requires preparation. Thank you for sharing Salma.

• Working with product managers (sean goedecke) - Was I that lucky all my life that I never encountered those types?

Sharing my Reading Notes is a habit I started a long time ago, where I share a list of all the articles, blog posts, and books that catch my interest during the week. 

 ~frank