Big reading list today. Sorry, not sorry. Hopefully you find a few fun things that catch your eye.
[blog] Free Tools Every ML Beginner Should Use. There’s seemingly a new AI/ML tool released every day, but these are mature options for beginners and experts.
[blog] The AI detective: The Needle in a Haystack test and how Gemini 1.5 Pro solves it. Long context isn’t the answer to everything (see the paper below), but Gemini’s ability to find a needle in the haystack is very impressive.
[blog] How DevOps can come back from the dead, and why it must. Coté says it’s time to distinguish DevOps from concepts that superseded it, like platform engineering.
[blog] How to Manage Python Dependencies in Cloud Functions. Learn how Kiran moved functions from Lambda to Google Cloud and handled Python package dependencies.
[blog] Cloud Run job with a Python Module. Background jobs with Cloud Run are great. Mazlum offers a detailed post about using Python modules with them.
[paper] In Defense of RAG in the Era of Long-Context Language Models. We got it going with Gemini’s 1m (now 2m) long context window, but now other models are starting to grow their input token size. But does that negate the need for RAG? Not according to this paper.
[site] Illuminate. Coolest thing I saw today. Generate an on-demand “podcast” for research papers and books. Try it with the paper above. Worked amazingly well.
[blog] Introducing backup vaults for cyber resilience and simplified Compute Engine backups. This seems like an industrial-grade solution for protecting your most important apps. And it seems straightforward to turn on.
[article] Coaching Founder Mode. Marty offers a must-read essay that proposes all product leaders be coached into a “founder mode” mindset.
[article] Take Your First Steps with Git. Git is for more than just developers; I’ve seen content authors, ops folks, database pros, and product managers rely on it. Having a base understanding is helpful.
[blog] Write Change-Resilient Code With Domain Objects. Here’s some helpful guidance on the Google Testing blog that might help you write code that handles changes better.
[blog] Tinder API Style Guide — Part 1. Creating some API standards around URI patterns and headers? Take a look at what the Tinder engineering team put together.
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