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.
207 articles from this blog
A comprehensive guide exploring different sandboxing techniques for safely running untrusted AI code, including containers, microVMs, and WebAssembly.
A critique of the new macOS Tahoe menu icons, arguing they are overly complex and poorly designed, violating Apple's own interface guidelines.
The author will join the Oxide and Friends podcast to make predictions about AI developments for the years 2026, 2028, and 2032.
Key insights on API design and compatibility from Addy Osmani's lessons at Google, emphasizing that compatibility is a core product feature.
How AI coding assistants are enabling experienced developers to code again by reducing time investment and leveraging management skills.
A Google engineer shares her experience using Claude Code to rapidly prototype a distributed agent orchestrator, highlighting AI's impact on complex software development.
Will Larson discusses the three key pillars for successful AI adoption in companies: domain context, AI tooling experience, and IT infrastructure.
Analysis of the most popular personal blogs on Hacker News in 2025, based on a tracking project that ranks domains by their performance on the platform.
A quote about Claude Code's potential impact on tech and a predicted industry split between outcome-driven and process-driven developers.
Introduces gisthost.github.io, a fork of gistpreview for rendering HTML files from GitHub Gists, explaining the underlying technology.
A review of key trends and developments in Large Language Models (LLMs) throughout 2025, focusing on reasoning models, agents, and industry shifts.
OpenAI has rebranded its Codex Cloud service to Codex Web, aligning the name with its web application interface.
A blog post quoting Armin Ronacher on how AI-assisted programming removes the frustrating labor of coding, leaving the core thinking intact.
How to retrieve archived Git repositories from Software Heritage, using a UK government open source project as a case study.
Explores how AI language models shift a programmer's role from writing code to managing context and providing detailed specifications.
shot-scraper 1.9 CLI tool released, featuring a new -x option to extract page resources and accessibility command fixes.
D. Richard Hipp discusses SQLite's rigorous aviation-grade testing methodology, contrasting it with PostgreSQL's peer-review approach.
The core challenge of programming is translating ambiguous human thought into precise computational logic, not just writing code.
Explains SQLite's selective contribution process and the required public domain copyright release, with a query showing contributor stats.
Explores how AI will expand knowledge work by making tasks cheaper, leading to new projects and activities we don't do today.
