Reading Notes #679

Exploring the intersection of AI and code this week, I stumbled on a treasure trove of practical insights, from building AI agents in n8n to Meta’s groundbreaking SAM Audio model. The blend of low-code tools, IDE integrations, and deep dives into .NET profiling shows how innovation is bridging creativity and technical rigor. Whether you’re automating workflows or decoding audio separation, there’s something here to spark curiosity and curiosity-driven coding.

AI

• 15 Practical AI Agent Examples to Scale Your Business in 2025 - This post contains many very good ideas of low-code agents that can really help you go through many different types of data

• Introducing SAM Audio: The First Unified Multimodal Model for Audio Separation - An insightful post about how AI could be used in audio

• How to Build an AI Agent in n8n for Beginners: Complete 2025 Guide (Snaplama) - I'm a fan of integration tools, and n8n is obviously part of those great tools. That AI node is very useful, and there are numerous ideas and applications you can explore with it. This post shares how you can do it as an agent, and I think a lot of people should try it

• When AI Amplifies Your Bad (and Good) Habits | The JetBrains AI Blog (Kris Kang) - Another post that helps us picture AI, giving us references to better understand how to use it to achieve the desired result.

• Bring your own AI agent to JetBrains IDEs (Sergey Ignatov) - This post shares many news, yes, you can bring your agent into writer, but also a collaboration with Zed and many new features related to those agents, looking forward to dig into those novelties

Programming

• Aspire 13.1 - Our holiday gift to you (David Fowler) - Nice update for Aspire!

• Creating a .NET CLR profiler using C# and NativeAOT with Silhouette (Andrew Lock) - A deep and very interesting post that plays with the unmanaged function.

• Aspire—Your Stack, Streamlined - Great release. There are breaking changes with Redis, so totally worth the 2 minutes of reading.

~frank

Reading Notes #678

In the ever-evolving tech landscape, this week’s reading notes blend cutting-edge tools with timeless insights. From Python’s growing role in .NET ecosystems to hands-on experiments with AI-powered data ingestion, there’s plenty to explore. Meanwhile, reflections on community, confidence, and finding our “second place” in a fast-paced world add a human touch. Jump into how developers are pushing boundaries, embracing new editors, and learning that growth starts with choosing courage, even when it’s scary.

Programming

• Python is First Class in Aspire 13 (Eric Erhardt) - As a .NET developer, I can totally see myself using that... In the near future

• .NET Conf 2025 Recap - Celebrating .NET 10, Visual Studio 2026, AI, Community, & More - .NET Blog (.NET Team) - The event is done, but the content is still there. I'm still going through myself, there's so much! All the slides, presentations, so much content available, everything about what and where to find

• Introducing Data Ingestion Building Blocks (Preview) - .NET Blog (Luis , Adam) - Pretty cool example using this new data block in C# file and AI to play with data.

• Trying out the Zed editor on Windows for .NET and Markdown (Andrew Lock) - I heard of Zed and was planning to try it, but this post saved me some time. The current unsupported razor pages is a show-stopper for me. But maybe later, if things changed.

Podcasts

• The 4 ways to rebuild your "second place" for belonging (Modern Mentor) - Did it all start because of a TV show?! Nevertheless, an interesting episode to help us find our spot and make those "first day work buddy" a better experience.

• Why you need to choose confidence (even when you're afraid), with Juan Bendaña (Modern Mentor) - Confidence isn't a character trait you're born with; it's a muscle you develop. I like the idea.

• World Leading Therapist: Why You Feel Stuck in Life & How to Get Unstuck (The Mel Robbins Podcast) - We talk to ourselves so much that what we say and how we say it can make a big difference. That's the topic of this very interesting episode.

Miscellaneous

• All good things must come to an end (Salma Alam Maylor) - I totally understand, but it is sad news to see her go out of the streaming business. She is amazing, I'm sure she's still rocks whatever she does.

~frank