Thoughts on software quality, AI coding, and engineering leadership.https://www.tollens.ai/enTue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/why-is-your-codebase-like-this/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/why-is-your-codebase-like-this/The case for recording decision provenance in AI-assisted development.Tue, 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTEdhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/stop-asking-your-ai-to-do-everything/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/stop-asking-your-ai-to-do-everything/How splitting AI work into separate contexts dramatically improves quality.Mon, 30 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTEdhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/coasting-on-reputation/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/coasting-on-reputation/Human code review is no longer the proxy for quality it once was. AI has opened the door to MC/DC testing, property testing, and so much more.Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTMartinhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/wallbits-and-mopheads/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/wallbits-and-mopheads/AI models will do whatever you ask with absolute conviction - whether it's building a 3D world viewer or cheerfully rebasing away half your bug fixes.Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTMartinhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/whats-in-your-garage/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/whats-in-your-garage/The era of software restoration has arrived. AI can reimplement complex codebases in a weekend - but it's still parasitic on the original work.Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTMartinhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/you-dont-need-to-train-a-model-to-make-it-smarter/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/you-dont-need-to-train-a-model-to-make-it-smarter/The harness layer - context engineering, structured reasoning, and multi-call orchestration - is where practitioners can drive real capability gains.Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTYanqinghttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/the-importance-of-being-lazy/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/the-importance-of-being-lazy/How doing less leads to better quality in AI-assisted development.Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTMartinhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/four-reasons-to-be-kind-to-your-ai/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/four-reasons-to-be-kind-to-your-ai/Why treating your AI assistant well leads to better results - and what it says about us.Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTYanqinghttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/cheerful-mediocrity/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/cheerful-mediocrity/The industry is obsessed with speed. It should be obsessed with quality.Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTMartinhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/how-fast-will-ai-get-better-at-software/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/how-fast-will-ai-get-better-at-software/The two-year pattern from party trick to human-level holds for narrow tasks - but software is a collection of many tasks.Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTYanqinghttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/hello-world/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/hello-world/Introducing the Tollens blog. We'll be writing about quality engineering, agentic development, and what it means to ship with confidence.Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTYanqinghttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/catching-the-wave-i-almost-missed/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/catching-the-wave-i-almost-missed/How maternity leave, late-night feeds, and a Hetzner VPS led to a vibecoding awakening.Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTYanqinghttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/agentic-coding-and-the-problem-of-oracles/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/agentic-coding-and-the-problem-of-oracles/As AI writes more code, the hard problem shifts from generation to knowing what good means.Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTYanqinghttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/the-renovation-problem/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/the-renovation-problem/When it's cheaper to start again than to transform legacy software organisations.Tue, 06 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTMartinhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/letting-go/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/letting-go/Why agentic coding requires team lead skills, not technical depth.Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTMartinhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/your-new-competition/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/your-new-competition/Small teams with AI tools are about to disrupt bloated software organisations. The barrier to entry is now trivial.Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTMartinhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/building-a-quality-culture/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/building-a-quality-culture/How to create environments where quality thrives, without becoming the quality police.Mon, 01 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMTEdhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/quality-in-practice-the-martians-dilemma/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/quality-in-practice-the-martians-dilemma/When different stakeholders value completely different things, quality becomes a negotiation.Mon, 18 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTEdhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/the-difference-between-nearly-clean-and-really-clean/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/the-difference-between-nearly-clean-and-really-clean/Why 99% test success rates can doom your test suite and your team's sanity.Mon, 04 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMTEdhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/measuring-quality/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/measuring-quality/Why your favourite quality metric is probably making things worse, and what to measure instead.Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTEdhttps://www.tollens.ai/blog/what-is-quality/https://www.tollens.ai/blog/what-is-quality/Moving beyond vague notions of quality to a definition you can actually work with.Mon, 09 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMTEd