SimonWillison.net is the long-running blog of Simon Willison, a software engineer, open-source creator, and co-author of the original Django framework. He writes about Python, Django, Datasette, AI tooling, prompt engineering, search, databases, APIs, data journalism, and practical software architecture. The blog includes detailed notes from experiments, conference talks, and real projects. Readers will find clear explanations of topics such as LLM workflows, SQL patterns, data publishing, scraping, deployment, caching, and modern developer tooling. Simon also publishes frequent micro-posts and TIL entries that document small discoveries and tricks from day-to-day engineering work. The tone is practical and research oriented, making the site a valuable resource for anyone interested in serious engineering and open data.
260 articles from this blog
A quote from John Carmack on the pitfalls of over-architecting software for future needs.
Argues that AI coding agents can help developers produce higher quality code and reduce technical debt by automating tedious refactoring tasks.
New PostgreSQL 18 and SQLite features allow developers to copy database statistics to test production query plans without moving large datasets.
Explores how modern LLM coding agents adapt to new or private tools, challenging the 'Choose Boring Technology' assumption.
A quote from Joseph Weizenbaum on how simple computer programs can induce delusional thinking in people, shared on a tech blog.
OpenAI offers 6 months of ChatGPT Pro with Codex to core maintainers of significant open source projects, following a similar move by Anthropic.
Key questions for developers, managers, and stakeholders to audit a software codebase and identify process issues.
Analysis of Anthropic's Pentagon contract and its strategy to brand itself as the ethical AI provider in a commodified market.
Explores the importance of manual testing by AI coding agents to complement automated tests, with practical patterns for Python, APIs, and web UIs.
A detailed analysis of a prompt injection attack against Cline's GitHub repo, exploiting AI issue triage to poison caches and compromise production releases.
OpenAI announces GPT-5.4 and GPT-5.4-Pro models with improved coding, document creation, and a 1M token context window.
Explores the legal and ethical implications of AI coding agents creating 'clean room' rewrites to relicense open-source software, using the chardet Python library case.
Reports on high-profile resignations within Alibaba's Qwen AI team, including its lead researcher, raising questions about the project's future.
Donald Knuth reflects on an AI (Claude Opus 4.6) solving an open problem he was working on, prompting a revision of his views on generative AI.
A developer's policy on using AI for writing blog posts, code docs, and proofreading, distinguishing human opinion from AI assistance.
Explores using interactive explanations and animated visualizations to understand AI-generated code and reduce cognitive debt in software development.
A skeptic's detailed journey using AI coding agents for complex projects, including porting scikit-learn to Rust, showcasing their surprising capabilities.
Anthropic offers free Claude Max AI access to eligible open source maintainers for six months, based on project popularity and activity.
A developer builds a Unicode character explorer using binary search over HTTP range requests, with AI assistance.
Thoughtworks retreat findings challenge AI's threat to junior devs, highlighting their value and the real challenge of retraining mid-level engineers.
