Are We There Yet?

Are We There Yet? The Evolution of AI in Application Development

Introduction: The Speed of Thought

In 1999, Bill Gates published a landmark book entitled Business @ the Speed of Thought. He argued that for businesses to thrive, they must leverage digital technology and networked information systems to operate at "the speed of thought."

As a practitioner with over 35 years in software engineering, Liberty Technology Consulting’s CEO, David Hamu, had already embraced this philosophy. He employed these principles to build software solutions for dozens of industry leaders, including TRW, Motorola, International Rectifier, APS/Pinnacle West Corporation, General Instruments, Apple, Nationwide Insurance, Avnet, State Farm Insurance, and Wells Fargo Bank.

Gates foretold the necessity of a "digital nervous system"—a framework where information flows instantly and intelligently. He concluded that companies adopting this strategy would outcompete those tethered to slow, paper-based, or siloed processes.

The Agile Gap and the AI Horizon

In the early 2000s, Agile concepts were introduced to the IT landscape. Unfortunately, as a methodology, Agile is often devoid of standardized best practices; it frequently lacks a "North Star" beyond the preferences of the individual leading the regime.

While completing a Master of Decision and Information Systems at Arizona State University, Mr. Hamu focused his studies on the application of Artificial Intelligence. Despite his early work on machine learning projects and neural networks for various clients, AI was far from "prime time." Even as recently as 2024, Mr. Hamu’s survey of the market found that AI technologies were not yet mature enough to fulfill the promise of truly accelerating complex application development.

That has changed. Today, a slew of AI application development tools has reached the marketplace. We now have platforms supporting the rapid development of business applications and intelligent agents that integrate with data to support rapid decisioning and automated workflows.

However, we must pause. The space is crowded with "pretenders." To navigate this landscape, a clear taxonomy of what is required for professional AI application development is necessary.

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A) Requisite Features of Mature AI Application Builders

1. Modern UI Generation: Leveraging JavaScript frameworks such as React.js or Angular.js. There is no room for platforms that generate user interfaces mimicking outdated 1990s-era technology.

2. Automated Back-end Support: Native generation of data stores and microservices. Most modern builders leverage Supabase, a service layer that sits atop the PostgreSQL relational database.

3. Advanced Security: The platform must implement state-of-the-art security to thwart human hackers and autonomous AI hacking agents.

4. Automated CI/CD Pipelines: Integrated deployment to eliminate the need for costly, manual DevOps resources.

5. Agentic Capabilities: Robust support for building intelligent agents to automate complex decision-making.

6. Version Control: Granular control to ensure seamless rollbacks to prior versions when necessary.

7. Standard Integrations: Out-of-the-box support for essential services (e.g., Email, SMS, Cloud Storage, Logging, and Payment platforms).

8. Functional Integrity: The builder must reliably apply changes to the platform without damaging existing application functionality.

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B) The Truth Behind the Hype

AI application builders will undoubtedly shorten development lifecycles compared to conventional methods. However, it is a "fool’s paradise" to believe that a sophisticated business application—complete with agents, third-party integrations, and business intelligence—can be constructed from a single prompt in a matter of minutes. That is merely marketing hype.

Practically speaking, a complex business application still requires months of diligent planning, analysis, and construction. Nevertheless, this remains a "drop in the bucket" compared to the cost and time required to build the same application using a traditional team of software engineers writing raw code.

AI development provides the engineer with a "trusted coder" that doesn't take vacations, sick days, or lunch breaks. While these tools do not always build functionality perfectly on the first pass, they are incredibly efficient at diagnosing failure modes, data inconsistencies and debugging their own errors. further improving time-to-market.

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C) The Core Framework Requirement

To a degree, AI builders impose their own frameworks. However, certain requirements cannot be achieved without an intentional design and architecture layer placed over that base. An AI builder alone will not reliably provide the necessary artifacts for a complex ecosystem of integrations and business intelligence; that still requires the steady hand of a skilled architect.

Conclusion

We began with the question: Are we there yet? The answer is: Just about. While we have not yet found a "Rosetta Stone" for universal application development, we have entered an era where AI application builders have achieved critical mass. This allows skilled software engineers to move away from the construction of raw code and instead delegate full-stack implementation to the AI, focusing their talents on high-level design and business logic.

Key Concepts from Business @ the Speed of Thought.

1. The “Digital Nervous System”

Gates compares effective information systems to a human nervous system.

Data flows instantly across the organization

Employees can respond quickly to problems and opportunities

Decision-making is based on real-time information

Takeaway: Speed + information = competitive advantage.

2. Information as a Strategic Asset

Gates emphasizes that how information moves inside a company is more important than traditional (management) hierarchies.

Replace paper processes with digital workflows

Use email and shared systems to break down silos

Capture customer data to improve products and service

Takeaway: Companies that harness data intelligently will dominate.

3. Empower Knowledge Workers

Technology should:

Automate routine tasks

Free employees to think strategically

Provide tools for collaboration

Gates predicted that companies failing to digitally equip workers would fall behind.

4. Customer-Centered Digital Systems

Digital tools should help companies:

Understand customer preferences

Personalize service

Anticipate needs

Gates foresaw CRM systems, e-commerce growth, and personalized online experiences before they became mainstream.

5. The Internet as a Business Platform

The book was forward-looking about:

Online sales

Self-service portals

Digital supply chains

Electronic marketplaces

Gates predicted the internet would transform every industry—not just tech.

Major Themes

Theme

Explanation

Speed

Faster information flow = faster decisions

Integration

Systems must connect across departments

Automation

Eliminate unnecessary human bottlenecks

Data-Driven Strategy

Use metrics and analytics to guide action

Digital Transformation

Every company must become a tech-enabled company

Predictions That Came True

Cloud-based collaboration

E-commerce dominance

Data analytics as core strategy

Mobile connectivity

Digital dashboards replacing paper reports

Overall Message

Businesses that treat information like a living system—flowing instantly and intelligently—will outperform competitors. Technology is not just an operational tool; it is a strategic weapon.

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Hoodwinked

The Agile Deception: a New Path for Software Engineering

For over two decades, Agile advocates have hoodwinked the software engineering community. We have attempted to force the square peg of Agile methods into the round hole of disciplined engineering, blinded by a fervor that prevents us from imagining what comes next.

The reality missing from the "Agile Transformation" hype is:

Software does not Become Agile Simply Because we Proclaim it so. 

Short iterations alone do not guarantee flexibility. True agility requires a master plan—a blueprint for how software is architected, designed, assembled, and coded.

The Case for Software Stability

Frameworks have long empowered engineers to build stable, sustainable systems. A promising path forward is Software Stability, a model pioneered by Dr. Mohammed Fayad. This approach posits that software can only be agile if it is designed for stability, scalability, and extensibility from the outset.

The promise of Software Stability is an evolution from "brute force" coding to the configuration of stable modules. This aligns seamlessly with modern AI initiatives. By using a foundation grammar closer to natural language than traditional code, Software Stability Models allow AI "bots" to pair with developers or independently generate test suites. We need technologies for the future, rather than continues dictates imposed on legacy systems that cannot support them.

The "New Boss" Fallacy

Agile began in 2001 at the Snowbird resort in Utah. The mission was to find an alternative to heavyweight "Waterfall" methods. While the critique of Waterfall’s inflexibility was valid, the industry essentially installed a "new boss" that was the same as the old one. We swapped one set of challenges for another, often creating new problems in the process.

The fundamental issue is that software ages. It becomes obsolete as technologies fail to keep up with modern tools. Academic literature suggests most software must be rewritten every five years. However, Agile’s disdain for "bloat" often results in a total lack of documentation.

Without documentation or a comprehensive test suite, how can a team achieve a necessary rewrite? Reverse-engineering a system is prohibitively expensive, yet Agilists decry documentation as unnecessary, leaving teams to wander through legacy code without a map.

The Fatal Fallacy: NBUA

We observe the focus on NBUA (No Big Upfront Anything) as a fatal flaw. This "fail-fast" maxim results in "local-minimum" designs—solutions that work for a specific sprint but lack the integrity required for durable, supportable software.

This has led to a growing "Anti-Agile" community born from the ashes of failed projects. Executives, frustrated by the skyrocketing costs of building and managing software, are sold "Agile Transformations" as a cure-all. When these transformations fail to lower costs, the blame is shifted to the engineers. Layoffs follow, but this is a fool's paradise; no one wants to admit they purchased snake oil.

The "Blind Leading the Blind"

In large organizations, Agile—particularly Scrum and Kanban—often results in the "blind leading the blind." By persuading executives to "fire all the project managers," Agilists have left projects rudderless.

• Abusive Timelines: Scrum Masters, often accountable only to cadence rather than technical requirements, push engineers toward arbitrary deadlines.

• The Scalability Wall: While Agile may function in small teams, it struggles in organizations that have grown beyond the SMB threshold.

• Governance Gaps: Overall architectural integrity is sacrificed at the altar of the sprint.

Conclusion: Beyond the Fallacy of Extremes

We have fallen prey to a fallacy of extremes. Waterfall was too inflexible, but under an Agile regime, no one knows when the software is broken until it is too late. We have traded long-term sustainability for short-term velocity.

Agile is short-sighted; it fails to address the critical lifecycle considerations of software and obscures the need for a path toward the inevitable rewrite. To move forward, we must stop imposing dictates on legacy technologies and return to a "right-sized" design and architecture—one that values stability as much as speed.

 

You are Dead to Me

For the reader who has read my "Dirty Little Secret" essay on this site, you will not be surprised to hear me say this:  

Enterprise Agile is dead to me!

Agile marketeers have been hocking agile to large scale enterprises for more than a quarter of a century.  What has it yielded?  I'll wait...

To reiterate, Agile is fine for startups and green-field development, but even then, it can be argued that the cost of spinning up an Agile practice is not economically sound..  Agile never promised a plethora of tools that would be required to preside over an agile engineering discipline.  In fact, the Agile Alliance abundantly rejected tools in favor of personal interactions.  Yet in practice most companies adopting Agile quickly outfit their Agile practice with a large acquisition of tools:  It's an unmanageable proposition, especially when the cost of the tools compel the enterprise to fire  all of the project managers in the interest of balancing the financials, after opening the coffers to buy all of the tools.

1. Tools for CI/CD aka pipelines, with not less than 1/2 dozen tools required.

2. Tools for Agile Management (is this even a  legitimate term - Agile Management?),We rarely see any integrated management in enterprise Agile rollouts. Instead we have clueless Scrum Masters who know nothing about traditional project management, and typically  have even less knowledge or experience with agile management)

  a. We get JIRA, Confluence, Service Now, and others....

3. Tools built on top of CI/CD tooling to address legacy concerns that traditional CI/CD tooling does not handle. Worse still, everything happens at the same time, so there is no ability to assess impact or incorporate any planning into the  "Agile Transformation" - a term that I am quite certain means "Suicide" in The Oxford English Dictionary.

The Tooling required does come with not only up-front costs and maintenance and leasing costs, but there are also integration costs that are not typically well understood.  These often get bundled into the term DevOps, but these DevOps concerns are often manifested in roadblocks, which cannot be easily quantified, nor circumnavigated in highly controlled or even regulated enterprise environments. The costs add up, but no one is responsible for tracking the overall costs of engineering around the requirements imposed by Enterprise Agile and it's requisite tooling.

Given these findings.  I can easily say, that Enterprise Agile is dead to me.  I hope that the reader finds this information of benefit.

Isnt it time?

Agile is getting old, yet it hasn't matured.  Isn't it time for a facelift for Agile? 

Or, in the alternative, isn't it time for smart engineers start to look beyond agile?  

Facing the facts, it is clear - Agile is not the holy Grail of software engineering discipline. Instead of feeding the beast that is Agile, shouldn't we be seeking to feed our Customers and users once and for all, and shake off the technology monkey that  has taken a ride on the backs of software engineers at no small cost?  AI should fill many gaps.  AI can be our DevOps if employed strategically to automate the DevOps activities, simplifying CI/CD pipelines and take software engineers out of that tedious and time-consuming activity.

A Dirty Little Secret

The world over, companies are embracing the Agile Revolution.  All software engineering is relegated to agile practices. Sounds good, right?

Wrong.  Agile is not a one-size fits all solution.  It is not even a methodology.  Agile is only a set of guidelines.  Most companies embracing agile have no appreciation for the pitfals that come with agile.  Invariably, many companies will embrace the SCRUM methodology in some form or other.  Unfortunately, SCRUM is not really a methodology either.  Rather, it is a further set of guidelines and rituals that may be adopted.

There is a dirty little secret about SCRUM and Agile.  The only promise that the agile alliance makes is that there is an emphasis on working software.  This is a good thing, right? Not exactly.  

In practice, SCRUM and Agile are pitched to corporate executives with the promise of greater efficience (read: cost savings).  The dirty little secret is that there are virtually no successful agile implementations of Agile methods in the corporate world.  Large corporations come replete with a set of challenges that Agile is not equipped to address. Namely, large corporations have the challenge of large amounts of legacy and commercial software  products which may be highly customized and integrated into a vast web of complexity.  Furthermore, corporate software may have evolved over years, or even decades such that the underlying business rules which prompted the development of various features of the applications are not well understood.  These software modules are typically very poorly documented and it is prohibitive to reverse engineer the software, and the time and budget to do this is typically astronomical.

The bottom line, is that the "experts" pitching agile to corporations are selling snake oil.  There is literally not one large corporation the world over that can point to any successful agile implementation at corporate scale with the possible exceptions of Amazon and Ali Baba, both are arguably green-field, startups, which is the sweet-spot for agile approaches.  When you have no legacy software, no installed base, and no contractual commitments whatsoever, agile can work brilliantly, but established corporations are being blind-sided by agilists who promise the world only to deliver nothing of value.

Guitar lessons

Slow Blues in C - Griff Hamlin lesson

slow-blues-in-c-DL.mp4

Beginnings Lesson - Chicago 

 

From <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Osnjp5bSeM>  

 

Beginnings/Chicago (tutorial) 

 

From <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jCd7DIaiDE>  

 

 

 

Crossroads - Cream / Eric Clapton (Songs Guitar Lesson) 

 

From <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp0Jkf-7Iwc>  

Closer to the heart

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Over the hills and far away:

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Babe I'm Gonna Leave You:

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Brown Suger:

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LaGrange:

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Black Dog:

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Bluegrass Ditty

Roxanne

CAGED major pentatonic scales

CAGED: Five Shapes on the Fretboard

Rock you like a hurricane

Courage

 Introduction:

Courage, my dear friends, is not the absence of fear, but rather the triumph over it. It is the audacity to face adversity head-on, to stand tall in the face of danger, and to persevere when all seems lost. Courage is a virtue that has been celebrated throughout history, revered by great minds and embodied by extraordinary individuals. In this essay, we shall embark on a journey to explore the essence of courage, drawing inspiration from the indomitable spirit of Robin Williams and the wisdom of prominent historical figures. And of course, no exploration of courage would be complete without the profound words of Morgan Freeman.

Defining Courage:

Courage is a multifaceted concept that encompasses various aspects of human existence. It is not limited to physical bravery alone but extends to moral courage, emotional resilience, and intellectual audacity. It is the willingness to take risks, to step outside one's comfort zone, and to confront challenges with unwavering determination.

Robin Williams once said, "You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." This quote encapsulates the essence of courage – that spark within us that propels us forward despite our fears and doubts. It is this madness, this audacity to dream big and pursue our passions relentlessly, that fuels our courage.

Physical Courage:

Physical courage is perhaps the most instinctive form of courage. It is the ability to face physical danger or endure pain without succumbing to fear. Throughout history, countless individuals have demonstrated extraordinary physical courage in the face of adversity.

One such example is Alexander the Great, who led his armies fearlessly into battle against overwhelming odds. His unwavering determination and audacity on the battlefield earned him a place in history as one of the greatest military leaders of all time. As he famously said, "I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion."

Moral Courage:

Moral courage, on the other hand, is the courage to stand up for what is right, even in the face of opposition or personal risk. It is the willingness to challenge societal norms, to fight against injustice, and to advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Nelson Mandela, a true icon of moral courage, once said, "I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." Mandela's unwavering commitment to justice and equality during his fight against apartheid in South Africa serves as a testament to the power of moral courage.

Emotional Courage:

Emotional courage is often overlooked but equally important. It is the ability to confront and overcome our deepest fears, insecurities, and emotional challenges. It requires vulnerability and self-awareness, as well as the strength to persevere in the face of emotional pain.

In his role as John Keating in "Dead Poets Society," Robin Williams delivered a powerful message about emotional courage. He said, "No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world." This quote reminds us that emotional courage lies in expressing our true selves, sharing our thoughts and ideas with the world, and embracing vulnerability as a catalyst for personal growth.

Intellectual Courage:

Intellectual courage is the audacity to question established beliefs, challenge conventional wisdom, and pursue knowledge without fear of judgment or ridicule. It is the willingness to explore new ideas and perspectives, even when they go against the grain.

Albert Einstein exemplified intellectual courage throughout his life. His groundbreaking theories challenged long-held scientific beliefs and revolutionized our understanding of the universe. As he famously said, "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."

The Wisdom of Morgan Freeman:

No exploration of courage would be complete without the profound words of Morgan Freeman, a voice that resonates with wisdom and gravitas. In his role as Nelson Mandela in the film "Invictus," Freeman delivered a powerful speech about the power of courage. He said, "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." These words remind us that courage is not something bestowed upon us by external forces but rather a choice we make to take control of our own destiny.

Conclusion:

Courage, my dear friends, is a virtue that transcends time and space. It is the unyielding spirit that defies all odds, the audacity to dream big and pursue our passions relentlessly. Whether it be physical, moral, emotional, or intellectual objectives.  Courage is the willingness to face adversity head-on and triumph over fear. As Robin Williams once said, "You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." So let us embrace our madness, nurture our courage, and let it guide us on our journey through life.