Ak33m

The Other BDD - Bead Driven Development

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been using AI agents exclusively to write code for a few months now. It’s been a cool experience, but some surprising things have surfaced, showing that my main challenge is not writing code, but capturing and organizing the work agents uncover.

Agents surface more work than I can write down by hand.
I like to build entire epics in a single run, but agents lose context and can’t see the whole picture, which makes that harder to sustain.
I also like to have agents work unattended overnight and “pick up” new work, but that creates another transition problem.
Beads turns out to be a better way to capture and organize work than tickets.

BDD Is Back, and AI Is the Reason

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Behavior-Driven Development spent a decade as a niche testing discipline. AI coding just promoted it to core infrastructure for how software gets built. When a model writes most of the code, your job shifts from typing to specifying. Gherkin, the plain-language “Given / When / Then” format behind Cucumber, turns out to be one of the cleanest ways to specify intent for humans and machines at the same time. The shift You’re doing product work now.

When to Act and How Much to Commit

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For years, I’ve searched for the right name for a distinct sensation: the moment a window opens in finances, in a career, or in a game of chess, where the challenge isn’t whether to act, but when and how much. Three ideas interlock precisely to frame this feeling: Kairos, the Kelly Criterion, and optimal stopping theory. Each is interesting on its own, but together, they become operational; offering a way to act on that sensation.

Building Candor: AI-Powered Product Discovery at the Gemini Live Agent Challenge

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Problem I Wanted to Solve I’m a builder, and the hardest part of building good software isn’t the code; it’s listening. Specifically, listening to what users are actually struggling with, not just what they say they want. AI already helps me write code faster. I wanted it to help me with the part that matters more: understanding the problem before I build the wrong solution. What Is Candor? Candor is an AI-powered digital twin that lets product managers and developers run product discovery interviews without needing a real customer in the room.

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 10:00:00 -0400

A few months ago, I was introduced to spec-driven development with AI and Kiro. While I didn’t continue using Kiro, I kept using the technique because it helped guard against the challenges of working with AI at the time. I’d spend time building out a detailed spec requirements, edge cases, acceptance criteria; hand it to the model, and watch it produce something technically faithful to the document but somehow still wrong.

So I’d refine the spec. Add more detail. Go back and forth. Recently, I realized this is waterfall development on a tighter loop. I’d just rebuilt the waterfall inside my AI workflow without realizing it.

I Was Blind, but Now I See. Event Sourcing and Observability

Sun, 22 Feb 2026 10:00:00 -0400

Event sourcing is an architectural pattern in which every change to an application’s state is recorded as a sequence of events (Fowler, 2005). Event sourcing is a companion architecture to domain-driven design, with events related to aggregate root entities within the domain. In domain-driven design, we model the domain by creating a ubiquitous language that captures its core concepts. Those objects are subject to certain actions, and it’s natural to think of these actions as events that have occurred.

Shop Getting Smaller

Mon, 19 May 2025 15:08:21 -0400

What a difference 3 years makes. In 2022, I wrote about running Wepala as an agency and celebrating 5 years of building amazing things. Now, in 2025, I find myself reflecting on the evolution of our business and the industry as a whole. Are we witnessing the end of the era of the agency? (TLDR; yes, at least for me.) Over the last few years, I’ve seen a significant shift in how businesses approach software development.

CUI vs GUI

Thu, 05 Oct 2023 16:15:22 -0400

With the rise of chatbots and voice assistants, there has been a lot of talk about the rise of conversational user interfaces (CUI). CUIs allow users to interact with a system using natural language. The most common CUIs are chatbots and voice assistants. CUIs are not new. They have been around for a long time. The first chatbot was created in 1966, and the first voice assistant was built in 1978.

To Langchain or not to Langchain

Tue, 04 Jul 2023 08:25:00 -0400

After reading Andressen Horowitz’s article on LLM Architecture I decided to look into Langchain. Langchain describes itself as a framework for developing applications powered by language models. I have been working with OpenAI for some time now ❓Why I decided to look into Langchain I’ve been working with OpenAI for some time now and I was intrigued that there are already frameworks for building applications powered by language models. One of the problems I’ve been working on is effectively testing and iterating models and I hoped that Langchain would help with that.

5 Years of Running D Shop

Tue, 31 May 2022 11:03:00 -0400

I started Wepala to create a company that would build amazing things. At a time when outsourcing work to Asia was the thing to do, I realized that the Caribbean was better positioned to deliver (no time or language barriers). I was pitching Nearshoring before there was a buzzword for it. Over the last five years, we’ve developed relationships with our clients as we built out minimal viable products (MVPs) for them and watched as they’ve found their place in the market. We’ve also been able to develop our products, and we’ve learned a tremendous amount along the way.

Photo by Clark Tibbs on Unsplash

New Normal

Tue, 14 Sep 2021 08:05:53 -0400

Everyone has felt the impact of Covid-19, and the technology industry is no exception. In challenging times businesses have increasingly turned to technology to meet those challenges. To satisfy the increased demand for software, we need more developers. Major technology companies have complained for some time that there is a shortage of developers. As the founder of a small technology solutions company, I’d argue it’s a bit more nuanced that.

It's Over Magento!

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 17:05:53 -0400

So I’ve always had a hate-hate relationship with Magento (there never was love). Ours was a convenient relationship; I needed something to run an online bookstore we wanted to start, and all the other solutions we looked at didn’t fit the bill. We wanted to accept payments in Trinidad and Tobago dollars, something you don’t get easier with hosted solutions. We also wanted something that had broad support and a variety of templates.

Viro React

Mon, 13 Apr 2020 15:57:22 -0400

I recently made an Augmented Reality Easter Egg Hunt app for my kids to play. It took me a week of part-time work to get it done (with some help on design and graphics). A big reason for getting something up so quickly was the ViroReact, a library for rapidly developing cross-platform AR/VR experiences. The technologies used in the app include: React Native - mobile development Redux - state management

Easter Egg Hunt

Fri, 10 Apr 2020 09:08:21 -0400

It’s Easter, and my family and I usually host an Easter Egg Hunt for the kids. Currently, because of COVID-19 strict social distancing guidelines are being followed, and we plan to have a small hunt with our kids this year. On Saturday (April 4th), I thought it would be a great idea to create an Augmented Reality Easter Egg Hunt where a “bunny” would place eggs using the app, and participants can find the eggs using the app.

We're in IT to win

Fri, 03 Apr 2020 13:08:21 -0400

unsplash-logoMarvin Meyer Today I was doing a bit of research to understand what people are searching for when they look for help with technology online. The usual terms that came up include CRM, social media, and e-commerce. There was one term that sparked an interest more than the others, and that term was Information Technology or IT. Instinctively as a software developer, I’ve shunned the phrase IT as a way to describe what I do.

Intermediate Budgeting

Sun, 26 Aug 2018 13:08:21 -0400

Let me start off by saying that I’m a long time Mint user (9 years) and I always rave how using Mint changed my life. This was back when I had no budgeting system in place and I was desperate to get visibility into what was going on in my finances. By simply being able to see where my money was going I was able to make significant life decisions that I am proud of.

Budget Baker (Wallet App) Getting Started

Sun, 19 Aug 2018 13:08:21 -0400

Wallet budget bakers image

The Wallet App (BudgetBakers) is a great app for those who want more granular control of their finance tracking.

Hello World

Sat, 03 Mar 2018 10:07:39 -0400

Hello World!(again). I used to be a semi-active blogger many years ago when I was a Flash developer. Like most folks back then (and even now) I used Wordpress. My blog was more of a note to self but it was relatively popular because of the news aggregator the Flash community used. (Un)like most folks I didn’t keep the software up to date and paid the price. At the time I simply took down the site and figured I’d back up the content at some point.