Notices by Martin Fowler (mfowler@toot.thoughtworks.com)

fragments: the consequences of absolute skepticism, cognitive debt with AI, will AI remove fun of programming, the future of source code, how to survive AI contributions to open source, explaining transformers to 12/62-year-olds

https://martinfowler.com/fragments/2026-02-09.html

Concerns about LLM-enabled browsers, the different perspectives on AI-Coding, and looking back at the loss of an iconic helmet.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/2025-11-03-frags.html

👀Domains and Bounded Contexts in DDD, tech industry focusing on the wrong kind of AI, story of Direct File, and U.S. government crippling its cybersecurity

https://martinfowler.com/articles/20251021-frags.html

NEW POST

Sriram Narayan looks at how to properly assess the effectiveness of software development - by developing an intelligence about its business impact

https://martinfowler.com/articles/impact-intel.html

I've known Beth for ages: wicked smart, understands tech really well, and cares about its impact on ordinary people. We need people in Congress like that.

https://bethfordemocracy.com

NEW §

Three more characteristics for Expert Generalists. Unmesh, Gitanjali and I describe favoring fundamental knowledge, skills blend, and sympathy for related domains

https://martinfowler.com/articles/expert-generalist.html#FavorFundamentalKnowledge

NEW POST

LLMs often need to interact with external systems. Kiran Prakash explains how they do this kind of function calling, not by executing the calls directly, but passing sufficient data about the call to a separate program.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/function-call-LLM.html

"how a child development researcher charged with no crime ended up in a crowded cell in Louisiana"

https://www.propublica.org/article/rumeysa-ozturk-best-friend-inside-story-tufts-trump-louisiana-ice

18F was a US government group helping government departments improve their use of technology which got recently wood-chipped. Here's a good overview of their work plus lessons learned: which apply to any large organization.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/learning-from-the-legacy-of-18f

I enjoyed this idea that authoritarian states are more like the movie Brazil than the book 1984 - because authoritarianism breeds incompetence.

https://observer.com/2025/02/terry-gilliams-brazil-at-40-more-prescient-than-orwell/

One lesson I've learned from history, is that few reputations survive being on the opposite side to the Quakers

https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-condemn-police-raid-on-westminster-meeting-house

The US is intending to remove the "X" for gender on passports. I have non-binary friends and don't see why they have to pick an option that makes no sense, or how "X" harms other people. So I commented on the Federal Register.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/2025-passport-x.html

NEW POST

DeepSeek's LLMs made a big splash, but more interesting is their recent research papers. Shayan Mohanty writes an overview of them, outlining their three main arcs: efficiency, HPC Co-Design, and RL for emergent reasoning.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/deepseek-papers.html

NEW POST

I continue my New Year habit by sharing favorite albums I discovered during the last year. This years set includes Celtic jazz, trip-hop neo-fado, jazz-fusion for the 2020's, playful harmonies, and a vibrant Indian classical plus string quartet.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/2024-music.html

NEW §

Juntao Qiu continues his explanation of how codemods can automate complex refactorings across a code base with a more complex example of extracting a responsibility from a JSX component

https://martinfowler.com/articles/codemods-api-refactoring.html#RefactoringAnAvatarComponent

NEW POST

Design tokens are fundamental design decisions represented as data. Andreas Kutschmann explains how they work and how to organize them to balance scalability, maintainability and developer experience.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/design-token-based-ui-architecture.html

@evan I haven't looked into that yet.

With the recent uptick in tech activity on Bluesky, I've decided that I will start posting there in addition to my current locations. I've also put together my general thoughts on the state of social media, and how I'm using it, now that it's two years since The Muskover.

https://martinfowler.com/articles/2024-social-media.html

A wonderful bit of animation directed by one of my favorite musicians. Four minutes of bleakness and hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXUkSiV4Jzs&t=247s

@timbray @simon I'll add a strong +1 to Tim. To really control your long-term material, you need a domain you control. Then you have the maximum flexibility on what tech to use on it.