Category: Artificial Intelligence
Let me introduce you to a shorthand term that I think will be useful soon: a12y, which is short for automatability, which is the ability to be automated.
(The term a12y indicates that the first letter is a, the final letter is y, and there are 12 letters between them. There’s a similar, better-known. shorthand term, a11y, which is short for accessibility.)
Automation is nothing new. It’s one of the reasons we use technology — from mechanical devices to computers to software and online services — to perform tasks with to reduce the work we have to do, or even eliminate the work entirely.
In the Python courses I’ve taught a few times at Computer Coach, I’ve covered how you can use Python to automate simple day-to-day work tasks and provided examples from one of the course’s core textbooks, Automate the Boring Stuff with Python (the entire book is available to read online for free!).
I’ve also created a number of Python automations that I use regularly. You’ve even seen some of their output if you’re a regular reader of this blog, since the weekly list of Tampa Bay tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events is generated by my automation that scrapes Meetup pages.
MCP is the latest buzzword in both AI and automation, or a12y with AI. Short for Model Context Protocol (and not Master Control Program in the Tron movies), MCP is a standardized way for AI models to go beyond simply generating answers and interact with external tools and data sources, such as APIs, databases, file systems, or anything else that’s connected to the internet and can accept commands to perform actions.
Simply put, it’s the next step in the path to creating AI agents that can perform tasks autonomously.
(Come to think of it, a10y might be a good shorthand for autonomously.)
We’ll cover all sorts of a12y topics in the upcoming Tampa Bay Python meetups! I’m currently working on the details of booking meetup space and getting some food and drink sponsors, but they’ll be happening soon. Watch this blog, the Tampa Bay Python Meetup page, and my LinkedIn for announcements!
On Thursday, May 8th from 11 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern, O’Reilly Media will host a free online conference called AI Codecon. “Join us to explore the future of AI-enabled development,” the tagline reads, and their description of the event starts with their belief that AI’s advance does NOT mean the end of programming as a career, but a transition.
Here’s what I plan to do with this event:
- Register for the event
- Log in when it starts and fire up a screen recorder
- Watch the event in the background while working
- Generate a transcript from the recording and feed it into a couple of LLM
- Have the LLMs answer any questions I may have and generate summaries and “going forward” game plans based on the content and my future plans
The agenda for AI Codecon
Here’s the schedule for AI Codecon, which is still being finalized as I write this:
- Introduction, with Tim O’Reilly (10 minutes)
- Gergely “Pragmatic Engineer” Orosz and Addy Osmani Fireside Chat (20 minutes)
Addy Osmani for an insightful discussion on the evolving role of AI in software engineering and how it’s paving the way for a new era of agentic, “AI-first” development.
- Vibe Coding: More Experiments, More Care – Kent Beck (15 minutes)
Augmented coding deprecates formerly leveraged skills such as language expertise, and amplifies vision, strategy, task breakdown, and feedback loops. Kent Beck, creator of Extreme Programming, tells you what he’s doing and the principles guiding his choices.
- Junior Developers and Generative AI – Camille Fournier, Avi Flombaum, and Maxi Ferreira (15 minutes)
Is bypassing junior engineers a recipe for short-term gain but long-term instability? Or is it a necessary evolution in a high-efficiency world? Hear three experts discuss the trade-offs in team composition, mentorship, and organizational health in an AI-augmented industry.
- My LLM Codegen Workflow at the Moment – Harper Reed (15 minutes)
Technologist Harper Reed takes you through his LLM-based code generation workflow and shows how to integrate various tools like Claude and Aider, gaining insights into optimizing LLMs for real-world development scenarios, leading to faster and more reliable code production. - Jay Parikh and Gergely Orosz Fireside Chat (15 minutes)
Jay Parikh, executive vice president at Microsoft, and Gergely Orosz, author of The Pragmatic Engineer, discuss AI’s role as the “third runtime,” the lessons from past technological shifts, and why software development isn’t disappearing—it’s evolving. - The Role of Developer Skills in Today’s AI-Assisted World – Birgitta Böckeler (15 minutes)
Birgitta Böckeler, global lead for AI-assisted software delivery at Thoughtworks, highlights instances where human intervention remains essential, based on firsthand experiences. These examples can inform how far we are from “hands-free” AI-generated software and the skills that remain essential, even with AI in the copilot seat. - Modern Day Mashups: How AI Agents Are Reviving the Programmable Web – Angie Jones (5 minutes)
Angie Jones, global vice president of developer relations at Block, explores how AI agents are bringing fun and creativity back to software development and giving new life to the “programmable web.” - Tipping AI Code Generation on its Side – Craig McLuckie (5 minutes)
The current wave of AI code generation tools are closed, vertically integrated solutions. The next wave will be open, horizontally aligned systems. Craig McLuckie explores this transformation, why it needs to happen, and how it will be led by the community. - Prompt Engineering as a Core Dev Skill: Techniques for Getting High-Quality Code from LLMs – Patty O’Callaghan (5 minutes)
Patty O’Callaghan highlights practical techniques to help teams generate high-quality code with AI tools, including an “architecture-first” prompting method that ensures AI-generated code aligns with existing systems, contextual scaffolding techniques to help LLMs work with complex codebases, and the use of task-specific prompts for coding, debugging, and refactoring. - Chip Huyen and swyx Fireside Chat (20 minutes)
Chip Huyen will delve [Aha! An AI wrote this! — Joey] into the practical challenges and emerging best practices for building real-world AI applications, with a focus on how foundation models are enabling a new era of autonomous agents.
- Bridging the AI Learning Gap: Teaching Developers to Think with AI – Andrew Stellman (15 minutes)
Andrew Stellman, software developer and author of Head First C#, shares lessons from Sens-AI, a learning path built specifically for early-career developers, and offers insights into the gap between junior and senior engineers. - Lessons Learned Vibe Coding and Vibe Debugging a Chrome Extension with Windsurf – Iyanuoluwa Ajao (5 minutes)
Software and AI engineer Iyanuoluwa Ajao explores the quirks of extension development and how to vibe code one from scratch. You’ll learn how chrome extensions work under the hood, how to vibe code an extension by thinking in flows and files, and how to vibe debug using dependency mapping and other techniques. - Designing Intelligent AI for Autonomous Action – Nikola Balic (5 minutes)
Nikola Balic, head of growth at VC-funded startup Daytona, will show through case studies like AI-powered code generation and autonomous coding, you’ll learn key patterns for balancing speed, safety, and strategic decision-making—and gain a road map for catapulting legacy systems into agent-driven platforms. - Secure the AI: Protect the Electric Sheep – Brett Smith (5 minutes)
Distinguished software architect, engineer, and developer Brett Smith discusses AI security risks to the software supply chain, covering attack vectors, how they relate to the OWASP Top 10 for LLMs, and how they tie into scenarios in CI/CD pipelines. You’ll learn techniques for closing the attack vectors and protecting your pipelines, software, and customers. - How Does GenAI Affect Developer Productivity? – Chelsea Troy (15 minutes)
The advent of consumer-facing generative models in 2021 catalyzed a massive experiment in production on our technical landscape. A few years in, we’re starting to see published research on the results of that experiment. Join Chelsea Troy, leader of Mozilla’s MLOps team, for a tour through the current findings and a few summative thoughts about the future. - Eval Engineering: The End of Machine Learning Engineering as We Know It – Lili Jiang (15 minutes)
Lili Jiang, former Waymo evaluation leader, reveals how LLMs are transforming ML engineering. Discover why evaluation is becoming the new frontier of ML expertise, how eval metrics are evolving into sophisticated algorithms, and why measuring deltas instead of absolute performance creates powerful development flywheels. - Closing Remarks – Tim O’Reilly (10 minutes)

I’m working on some new videos for the Global Nerdy YouTube channel, and one of them is on answering questions in the dreaded “behavioral interview.” That’s the interview where you’re asked questions like “Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a conflict on your team. How did you handle it?”
To help come up with ideas for the video about behavioral interviews, I posed some questions to LLMs. As I like to say, no matter how creative or clever you are, it is by definition impossible to make a list of ideas that you’d never come up with yourself.
So I posed this question to Claude, which for some reason, seems to know stuff about me:
How would you describe a behavioral interview, if you had to describe it in the style of Joey deVilla?
And wow, was the response snark-tastic:
Here’s the text of the response:
Joey deVilla’s Guide to Behavioral Interviews
Imagine me adjusting my accordion straps and coffee mug before dropping this knowledge bomb…
So you wanna know about behavioral interviews? Those corporate rituals where they ask you to “Tell me about a time when…” instead of just asking if you can do the damn job?
Behavioral interviews are the tech industry’s version of “Show, don’t tell” – except instead of showing your actual skills, you’re telling stories about when you supposedly used them! It’s like your professional life as fan fiction, where the hiring manager is desperately hoping you’re not writing in the genre of fantasy.
These interviews operate on the radical premise that past behavior predicts future performance. Revolutionary, I know! It’s like assuming that because I once played “Lady of Spain” on my accordion at a Tampa dev meetup, I’ll do it again given the chance and sufficient sangria.
The formula they want is STAR: Situation, Task, Action, Result. But what they’re REALLY looking for is STARBS: Situation, Task, Action, Result, Bull$#!t – that special sauce where you frame yourself as the hero who saved the project while maintaining perfect diplomatic relations with that passive-aggressive PM who kept moving the goalposts.
The trick isn’t just recounting what happened – it’s storytelling with a corporate-friendly narrative arc. You need conflict (but not TOO much conflict), challenges (that showcase your skills), and resolution (where you emerge victorious but humble).
Remember: in behavioral interviews, there are no failures – only “growth opportunities” and “valuable lessons” that conveniently transformed you into exactly the employee they’re looking for!
Adjusts glasses, takes dramatic sip of coffee
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go practice my own STAR stories for when someone inevitably asks me about “a time I demonstrated adaptability in a challenging situation” – which is code for “that time I coded for 36 hours straight because someone in management promised an impossible deadline.”
My questions, after reading Claude’s output:
- Am I really that much of a smart-ass?
- “STARBS” — Situation, Task, Actions, Result, Bullshit — is pretty clever. Whose writing did Claude lift that from?
So I did some web searches using terms like starbs star situation task action result bullshit
, and couldn’t find any instance of STARBS. It seems to be one of those effectively new creations that an autocomplete-on-steroids can generate.
I’m not gonna lie: I kind of like STARBS, and wish that I’d come up with it myself.
(If you’re interested, see if you can do some searches to find other instances of the term STARBS.)
It’s been a while since we’ve had a “meetup of meetups” for Tampa Bay — let’s fix that. Join us this Wednesday, April 30th for Tech Groups of Tampa Bay’s Happy Hour Networking + AI Lightning Talk!
The tl;dr
- The event: Tech Groups of Tampa Bay’s Happy Hour Networking + AI Lightning Talk
- What it is: A gathering of various Tampa Bay tech meetups that’s mostly social, but also features a lightning talk on the hottest tech topic: AI!
- When: Wednesday, April 30th from 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
- Where: Thrive DTSP (136 4th St N, Ste 201, St. Petersburg FL)
- Will there be food and drink?: Yes, and it’ll be FREE!
- How do register: On the Tampa Devs meetup page
The details
The event will be an opportunity to mingle with fellow and aspiring technologists, enjoy refreshments and an engaging lightning talk on the latest in Artificial Intelligence.
The venue: Thrive DTSP

Connect with Tampa Bay professionals, share ideas, and explore the future of AI in the vibrant community setting of the coworking space known as Thrive DTSP!

The lightning talk: James Gress

In addition to networking, there’ll also be a quick talk on AI, delivered by James Gress, Director at Accenture for Leading Emerging Technologies!
The participating tech meetup groups
This will be a meetup of meetups, and the participating meetups will be:
- Tampa Devs
- Tampa Bay Techies
- Tampa Java User Group (JUG)
- Tampa Bay Artificial Intelligence Meetup
- Suncoast Software Skills Meetup
- Coders, Creatives, and Craft Beer
- Tampa Bay Data Engineering Group (TBDEG)
- Tampa Bay Data Science Group (TBDSG)
- Tampa Bay Python
- Tampa Bay Product Group
- Tampa Bay QA and Testing Meetup
…and more groups will be participating!
It’ll be an opportunity-rich environment for to network ing with like-minded individuals and connecting with recruiters and professionals who can help advance your career or support your transition into a new field!
Free food and drink
Thanks to these sponsors…
…there’ll be food provided for free. The beverage sponsor will be announced shortly!
And of course, the accordion…
Is it really a Tampa Bay tech event without it?
Join us this Wednesday!
Meet up with your peers, make new friends and catch up with old ones, and create some opportunities this Wednesday at the Tech Groups of Tampa Bay’s Happy Hour Networking + AI Lightning Talk!
When I say that manufacturers are trying to put AI into everything, I mean everything. Case in point, here’s an ad for AI condoms by Manforce, a condom brand in India…
…and of course, there’s also an app, which you connect to the condom by scanning a QR code.
And of course the company’s VP in charge of sales wrote about it on Linkedin: