Summer of Protocols

I have work I need to do *and* tools/workflows I want to learn and explore. My work is getting overwhelmed by the exploring. Is there an LLM agent that checks in every 15 mins to say "hows the <ticket> going?" Some kind of realtime coach I can dialogue with?

Uncanny how close this is is to what I’m thinking about. Is this a common tradeoff people think about? Work on tooling vs work on work?

Related to definition of tension = tradeoff + conflict

Here conflict is between your pragmatically productive self that just uses whatever expedient tooling state there is, vs idealist self optimizing tooling to death getting nothing done

Historically I’ve ignored tooling almost entirely and focused on “work” (well “work” by my standards anyway, which is “screwing around” by regular people standards). But last few years I’ve gotten interested in tooling. Mainly because I’m middle-aging into decrepitude and need tooling for weaker senses, memory, mental acuity, etc

Blogger at ribbonfarm.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

Oscillations may be best.

Einstein had to take a break and learn tensor theory and practice before formalising his most famous works.

At least for programmers, i think the traditional wisdom is captured by https://xkcd.com/974/ but the AI tools have flipped the table on that. Explore/exploit is a classic trade off, but the acceleration is so steep now that the value of explore has skyrocketed, but it takes at least a little exploit to survive and stay oriented. I yearn for a meta-assistant to help manage the outer-loop