Field notes
If you are choosing an AI coding tool for your team, you probably start with a leaderboard. Who scored highest? Two things published on October 23 suggest that number tells you less than it seems: a research paper on what the tool wrapped around the AI model actually adds, and a popular coding benchmark that […]
Most talk about AI coding tools is about building something new. Describe an app, get working code. That is useful, but it is not where most software work happens. On October 23, NTT announced research technology aimed at the harder case: existing systems where the documents, the code and the tests no longer agree. NTT […]
On October 21, the PHP project released fixes for two critical flaws in the PHP engine, known together as php2shell. They let an attacker who is not logged in run their own code on a server that handles web requests with PHP. Attackers did not wait. Amazon saw an exploit attempt four days before the […]
Two reports published on October 20 ask the same question from different sides. AI coding tools help developers produce more. Is the business actually getting more? Gergely Orosz of The Pragmatic Engineer spoke with engineers and engineering leaders at 27 companies about what they spend on AI and what changed. ActiveState, a company that sells […]
On October 19, BILL, the US finance platform used by nearly 500,000 businesses, announced a new set of AI features. The part I find most useful is the least exciting one. Before a bill gets paid, the AI looks at it and asks a simple question: does this look like what this vendor usually charges […]
Late on October 16, someone got into an old system at OpenCode, the company behind a popular open-source AI coding agent. The next morning, OpenCode emailed a small group of users with a simple message: the AI provider keys you saved with us may have been exposed. Revoke them and create new ones. Only 1.4% […]
This week, two very different ERP vendors shipped the same idea. On October 16, DANAOS Projects released ProjectVIEW ERP v12 with an MCP connector, so assistants like Claude and ChatGPT can work with the system directly. Days earlier, at Rising 2026, Workday said its Trusted Agent Platform is now “headless”, with its own MCP tools […]
Many software teams already know where their security problems are. The hard part is finding time to fix them. That is why two GitHub releases from October 15, 2026 caught my attention: agentic autofix for code scanning alerts and AI Scan for pull requests, both now generally available. My question is simple. What practical problem […]
Prompt Architect — Clean desktop interface for building powerful AI prompts Quick Summary: Stop getting generic, robotic answers from AI. Prompt Architect helps you build highly structured, context-rich prompts in seconds. This guide explains prompt engineering fundamentals (tokens, context, output quality), why organization matters, and how a practical tool accelerates real business growth. Table […]
Professional team collaborating in a modern office meeting room discussing business strategy and software decisions Quick Summary: Choosing between SaaS and custom software isn’t about which is “better” — it’s about which fits your stage, unique processes, budget horizon, and growth ambitions. This practical 2026 guide breaks down the real trade-offs with frameworks, real examples […]
