What do platform engineers need to do to prepare for a flood of AI-generated apps? If enterprises let loose “knowledge workers” with code generation, I think we’ll see 10x the amount of little applications out there. This is going to be a flood of Day Two problems for platform engineers, security, people, etc. So, on this week’s Tanzu Catsup, I asked Tony how he’d recommend handling that flood.
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How to use AI for solo roleplaying with Dungeons & Dragons
Here’s my talk from AI for the Rest of Us:
What the goblins can teach us about enterprise AI. // I’ve learned what agentic AI is by fighting goblins, talking with trolls, and buy custom made boots from gnomes. After a few years of playing solo D&D with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc., playing the role of a DM, I started writing little plugins (Model Context Protocol servers) to give the ChatDM.
After the Dream - Software Defined Talk #555
This week’s Software Defined Talk podcast: This week, we discuss Gemini powering Siri, AWS’s biggest competitor, and AWS strategy choices. Plus, when should your next meeting actually start?
Watch the video (above), or if you prefer traditional podcasts, subscribe to it.
60% of you Java people are living dangerously
Check this out from my pal DaShaun: in May of 2025, 60% of Spring Boot downloads were for versions no longer supported by the open-source project. That’s a lot. Too much, really.
I can see how it happens. You get an app into production, it runs fine, and then you moveon to the next thing. Meanwhile, the version drifts into “End of Life” territory. OSS support ends (like way back in mid-2023 for the Spring version DaShaun mentioned).
Here’s a cynical, but good overview of Anthropic’s attempt to use Claude code for generic knowledge work, a tool called Cowork. One part:
Cowork may find fans among knowledge workers who have to create presentations but take no pride in their work.
Come on.
This is an application of that caustic Protestant belief that godliness requires suffering and pain. At the very least a bunch of tedious bullshit. The easy path is the Devil’s work.
Sometimes easy is greatness. This gets more true as you get older. E.g. “this overnight success only took 20 years.” In fact, isn’t making things easier, like, the point of…everything?
See also: “spellcheck and digital publishing, for those who take no pride in their writing and lithography.”
Original: Anthropic floats Claude Cowork for office work automation. See also a coverage round-up of Claude Cowork.
Winning in AI, story mode
Winning in AI is now defined as having a great chat app, not the AI infrastructure running that app. Amazon (AWS) has no chat app (that I know of, which is the point!), so people don’t think they’re winning. If AWS did have an app, and evolved it as a product, they would be at the AI table.
It doesn’t matter that AWS might have the “picks and shovels.” That’s not where the definitional power and attention and leaderboard is.
I wasn’t really sure what hardned images were, let alone “distroless,” so Tony and I were lucky to get William on this week’s Tanzu Catsup to sort it out. We also discuss how it fits into platform engineering.
This week’s Software Defined Interviews episode is with Lian Li:
In this episode, Whitney and Coté talk with Lian, a “cloud-native human” with a 15-year career in tech. Lian discusses her transition from tech to performance art, her experiences in amateur musical theater, stand-up comedy, and improv theater. She talks about platform engineering, the importance of community building in tech, and balancing professional life with personal projects. They also cover her unique improv workshops for engineers at conferences and the popular KubeCon karaoke parties she organizes.
Listen and subscribe, or watch the video (above) if you’re into that kind of thing.
The Alpha and The Omega, Software Defined Talk #554: This week, Brandon and I discuss AI’s impact on Stack Overflow, Docker’s Hardened Images, and Nvidia buying Groq. Plus, thoughts on playing your own game and having fun. If you don’t like the traditional podcast format, check out the unedited recording.