https://iansharland.com On building software, working with AI, and figuring things out in public. en https://iansharland.com/writing/read-before-write https://iansharland.com/writing/read-before-write Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT The thing my AI agent gets wrong most often isn't logic, it's editing a file it never actually read. One of the many rules I have for it is to read the file first, this session, before it changes anything, and not let it just promise it did. https://iansharland.com/writing/three-companies-hold-the-keys https://iansharland.com/writing/three-companies-hold-the-keys Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT In The Uncomfortable Parts I said I was dependent on companies I can't influence. A single government memo this month proved the dependency goes deeper than I'd written: even the companies I depend on are themselves at the mercy of states and suppliers they can't influence either. https://iansharland.com/writing/why-i-never-merge https://iansharland.com/writing/why-i-never-merge Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT An AI agent writes a large share of the code I ship. It's fast, it's competent, and it's wrong often enough that I never let it merge its own work. A solo founder's case for keeping a human on the gate, and the controls that make it safe to hand a machine the keyboard. https://iansharland.com/writing/the-law-cant-keep-up https://iansharland.com/writing/the-law-cant-keep-up Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT The reason most of the problems in 'The Uncomfortable Parts' stay unresolved is structural: courts, regulators and legislators move on a timescale measured in years, and AI moves on one measured in model generations. The institutions we'd normally rely on to sort this out are running a race they've already lost. https://iansharland.com/writing/the-shell-setting https://iansharland.com/writing/the-shell-setting Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT I am trying a shorter, more technical Friday post alongside the longer essays earlier in the week. First up: the one line I put at the top of every shell script because silent failures are almost always worse than loud ones. https://iansharland.com/writing/silent-failures https://iansharland.com/writing/silent-failures Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT The most expensive bugs are not always the ones that crash. They are the ones where the system says everything is fine after the thing you rely on has quietly stopped doing its job. https://iansharland.com/writing/pulling-up-the-ladder https://iansharland.com/writing/pulling-up-the-ladder Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT AI is taking the entry-level work that used to train juniors in knowledge-work professions, and the response from those industries — though more substantial than I'd assumed — isn't yet anywhere near the scale of the displacement. A look at the data, and an honest take from someone sitting on the comfortable side of the age split. https://iansharland.com/writing/ai-governance https://iansharland.com/writing/ai-governance Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT A former CISO's approach to AI-assisted development: trust nothing, verify everything, and build the plumbing before you need it. https://iansharland.com/writing/uncomfortable-parts https://iansharland.com/writing/uncomfortable-parts Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT The specific costs of AI-assisted development that I benefit from and haven't resolved: displacement, dependency, training data, energy, and code quality. https://iansharland.com/writing/adhd-automation https://iansharland.com/writing/adhd-automation Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT How a neurodivergent developer designed an entire CI and automation infrastructure around the way his brain actually works, not the way it should. https://iansharland.com/writing/ai-uncertainty https://iansharland.com/writing/ai-uncertainty Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT On building software with AI-assisted development, taking the training data criticism seriously, and why governance matters more than enthusiasm.