On March 28 I’m presenting on Fundamentals of AI to the Boston Code Camp. While I will cover what you need to know about the various aspects of using and creating various AI components, the key message is it is time. It is time to start developing and honing your AI skills, or as I say in the title, you will be run over by the AI bus.
After the presentation, I’ll cover a lot of that material here, but to get us started let’s talk about the two ways you’ll care about AI.
- Using AI to aid you in your coding
- Creating applications that incorporate AI
By now, you probably are using AI in your coding, although I’m willing to wager that most of us are not using it as well or as extensively as we might. I hope to expand on that as we go.
In a previous post, I talked about creating a copilot-instructions.md file (though you might want a CLAUDE.md file!). You’ll also want to create (at least)
- Memory.md // key facts and decisions you’ve made
- Restart.md // what you were doing when you stopped
- Mistakes.md // mistakes you don’t want copilot to make again
Why? Because Claude and Copilot, etc., have limited short-term memories, and after a while they begin to forget what you’ve already done. You then periodically have copilot read these files (which you assiduously keep updated) and that provides context that helps copilot stay on track (for copilot, read Claude, etc.) I tend to do this every 15 minutes or so, and at the end of each session I’m sure to update all three files so that they are ready for the next session.
For this, and every good idea I have about working well with AI, I’m deeply indebted to a number of smart people, first among them Jeff Blankenburg and his 31 Days of Vibe Coding and Jamie Maguire’s outstanding free course on Microsoft’s Agent Framework. I can also highly recommend the Johns Hopkins 16-week course on Agentics, which I’m enjoying immensely.
If Vibe Coding is what floats your boat, be sure to see my interview with James Montemagno. Start at about 3 minutes in if you’re in a rush.
So much to discuss. In coming posts I’ll cover three main topics:
- Using AI to enhance and simplify your coding (hey! copilot! what does this mean?)
- Incorporating AI into your application
- (really 2a) A working demo. At the moment it is HyperVideo, though I’m stuck on the fact that my video player keeps choking on the audio in my videos making everything freeze up. Any suggestions? Since I have to do some projects for my Agentics course, I may switch over to one or more of those. In any case, I’ll bring you along for the ride.
The next topic, however, is MCP. Stay tuned; I’ll be recording a new, expanded videocast with Lance McCarthy on that very topic. Here’s the first one we did. In the coming one we’ll dive deeper, with real live code and everything!
Much more soon…
