Blog

Our thoughts on technology and design

Artificial Intelligence
...or what I should have known before I jumped in and started playing around. In this post I cover few shot learning and fine-tuning.
Tech
...or what I should have known before I jumped in and started playing around. In this post I cover logprobs and the "creativity" controls.
Artificial Intelligence
...or what I should have known before I jumped in and started playing around. In this post I cover the basics of tokens, the model and prompt design.
Cloud
As Cloud deployments become more powerful with increased provider competition, where does High Performance Computing (HPC) fit into the equation? This blog post explores the considerations for using HPC in the Cloud.
Artificial Intelligence · Video
Last month GitHub released Copilot, an AI powered tool that provides surprising accurate suggestions ranging from a few lines of code to entire functions. Copilot uses a vast and powerful AI model that is trained on billions of lines of open source code from GitHub. This, combined with the context provided by your code and comments, allows it to provide amazingly accurate suggestions. This is no simple autocomplete, this is pair programming with a robot!
Tech
TypeScript can enhance the experience of developing React components. However to fully represent the types of some dynamic components, we need to harness the power of union types. This article examines an example where union types improves our component typing.
UX Design
In this article, I focus on the migration strategy for legacy applications from a UX perspective and highlight the elements that businesses should think about.
Artificial Intelligence
I've been lucky enough to be granted access to the preview of Copilot, GitHub's new 'AI pair programmer' that is causing quite a stir. This blog post shares my initial thoughts and experiences with this tool. In brief, I'm stunned by its capabilities. It has genuinely made me say 'wow' out loud a few times in the past few hours, not something you expect from your developer tooling.
Tech
When using TypeScript for many developers it is natural to compare to Object Oriented languages. However TypeScript is different. This article looks at one tool that does not exist in Object Oriented languages: Union Types, and how you can use it to improve your TypeScript.
Tech
When first using TypeScript you get presented with a choice, do I represent that with an interface or a type alias? In this article I explain the differences and why and when you should choose one over the other.
Tech
This blog post shares the results of the first State of WebAssembly Survey, with results from 250 respondents surveyed in June 2021. We find that Rust is the most frequently used and most desired WebAssembly language and many other interesting results
Tech
RTK Query is the latest addition to the Redux family, intended to make loading data from a server as easy as possible. In this post, we'll look at why I'm so excited for it, and answer the question "but why does redux care about data fetching?"
Tech · Video
In this panel discussion, Ash Smith (GDS), Cheryl Stevens (DWP) and Mike Crockart (The Scottish Government) discuss their approaches to identity assurance, including opportunities to improve the user experience and potential obstacles to overcome along the way.
Tech · Video
In this talk, I delve further into the proposed transition from Open Banking to Open Finance, discussing some of the possible opportunities and challenges on the journey.
Tech
In advance of the event on Profit with Purpose that I'm participating in during Digital Leaders Week, I reflect (briefly) here on my experiences in Government, my thoughts on some of the challenges that still lie ahead, and why I’m excited to be the new ‘gaffer’ at Scott Logic.
People
Every year at this time, I celebrate Pride with my LGBTQ+ brothers, sisters and genderqueer family. For me, it’s a time each year when I come together with my LGBTQ+ family, friends (and those friends who have become my family) and allies in love and friendship. It’s a time when we can celebrate how far gay rights – our human rights – have come, but also recommit ourselves to the work yet to do. It’s a time when I remind myself of our history and the battles won in striving for equality for all, but also the ongoing need to teach tolerance and acceptance within our community and beyond it.
Data Engineering
Organisations across the globe have been on a journey to find the optimal approach for managing and leveraging analytics data. In this post, I’ll set out each of the key milestones on the journey, to arrive at the latest milestone – the Data Mesh paradigm – and ask whether it is really a thing.
People
The shift in thinking from discrete change projects to continuous product delivery and the evolution of the IT organisation to incorporate DevOps means that we can now be truly agile in technology delivery. But there is much more to business agility than technology. The barrier to further business agility is often the physical manifestation of the organisation itself.
People
As part of our Look Up From Lockdown campaign, we’ve invited senior leaders from our clients’ organisations to reflect on their experiences and learnings from addressing the challenges of the pandemic, and to look ahead to how their organisations will be returning to the office. Having found the insights from others fascinating, we thought it was time we shared our own views. Here, Rob Smith discusses his and Scott Logic’s experiences through Lockdown
People · Video
In this talk, Manila McLean, Newcastle Building Society CIO, and I reflect on our experiences and learnings from how we've led our respective businesses to address the challenges of the pandemic. We look ahead to how our organisations will be returning to the office - and what this means for ways of working, managing productivity and staff wellbeing.

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