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Howardismvol. 03 · quiet corner of the web
Howardism · Vol. 03Plate II · No. 02

Essay, filed.

Pieces7SectionEssayOldest10 Apr 2026Newest23 May 2026

Longer-form arguments and reflections.

Essay articles, sorted by date, newest first.
TitleSummaryDate
Orchestration vs Employee Framing: Reconciling the Founder's Playbook with HBR's Accountability EvidenceReconciles the Founder's Playbook orchestration framings with HBR Kropp et al.'s accountability evidence; "orchestration as workflow design" survives the critique; "orchestration as mental model of agents-as-coworkers" does not; operational checklist for the disciplined founder
Does the Human-Facing Harness (HTML Artifacts) Hit Its Own Bloat Ceiling?Yes — HTML raises and reshapes the human-attention ceiling but can't remove it; bloat relocates from document-length to artifact-sprawl/rubber-stamping; the ceiling gets *more* binding as models improve (inverse of the shrinking model-facing harness)
Opinions on Using AI Tools & the Future of the Software Engineering RoleDebate map of four stances on using AI tools (bullish-insider / pragmatist-practitioner / skeptic-governance / architecture-thesis) + synthesis on the future SWE role: coding→deciding/verifying, role convergence, what stays human, which moats survive, honest caveats
Learning to Co-Work with AI: A Software Engineer's Field GuideField guide for software engineers in the AI era: 6 skill clusters (taste, harness, alignment-first planning, agent-friendly architecture, verification, strategic positioning), daily practices, anti-patterns, 90-day plan
Opus 4.6 → 4.7 Changes and Multi-Agent Coding Considerations4.6→4.7 delta table + six hazards for multi-agent coding teams: role-based model selection, prompt re-tuning, harness invariants, per-agent context budget, unattended-fan-out safety, independent reviewer
When to Use Claude Opus 4.6 for WorkDecision rules for Opus 4.6 deployment: solver-not-planner, elaboration-load-bearing tasks, brevity constraints, Pareto frontier check
What Are AI Tools?Overview of AI tools landscape and categories