When we planned fintechbenchmark.com (currently in beta), we realized that AI wasn’t optional—it was essential. We could either embrace this revolution or watch competitors leave us behind.
We faced a classic startup dilemma: build a custom AI solution (expensive and slow) or use an off-the-shelf product to launch quickly and learn what our visitors actually need. We chose the pragmatic route.
Continue Reading »Posted in ai, Still-coding | Tagged ai, artificial-intelligence, Chatbase, Chatbot, ChatGPT, llm, Technology | Leave a Comment »
I am thinking about putting together a presentation on AI for the uninitiated. I thought a good starting point would be a SWAT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). It is a technique that is very useful in analysing new projects. A number of people have done this but why not have another go.
So I asked an AI (Claude).
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After retiring 15 years ago from professional software development, I had a clear picture of what source control should provide for a commercial development team:
When a business opportunity pulled me out of retirement and back into managing a development team, I naturally asked about source control. The universal response? “We use Git.”
Continue Reading »Posted in History, Still-coding | Tagged ai, devops, GIT, GITHUB, Source control, Subversion, SVN, Technology | Leave a Comment »
When I began the project I am currently working on (more details will be provided next month – probably), it was initially intended as a small test to determine the capabilities of AI. Over the last six months it has turned into something that we might take further.
But I hit a problem. As a little hobby project I chose the database I really really like – CouchBD. CouchDB is elegant, simple yet very functional and efficient. Close to the perfect database management system (DBMS). But to take it further I need to involve other developers and it turs out that CouchDB skills are few and far between. Truly it is the Betamax of DBMSs.
Continue Reading »Posted in Database Management Systems, Still-coding | Tagged ai, artificial-intelligence, CouchDB, MongoDB, node.js, NOSQL, programming, SQL, Technology, typescript | Leave a Comment »
My previous blog post outlines my success in converting a data structure definition from one format to another. Both ChatGTP and Gemini had a really good stab at it. The result was mainly accurate and extra information had been added for me. ChatGTP managed to make a mistake on the second attempt at the task, and when I asked it why, it used a completely made-up (and incorrect) rule about SQL Databases as an excuse. So Turing Test passed!
I gave it another task. Convert a routine from using the SQLite3 data base management system, to the higher performance MySQL. This is a straightforward, if tedious task. How did it do?
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In a previous post I showed how an AI system (ChatGPT) was an easy way of converting an SQL Schema to a JSON-Schema. It was very successful and could save hours of donkey-work when dealing with a legacy database. I am coding in TypeScript so I asked for a TypeScript schema as well. It also did that perfectly.
I asked Gemini to do the same job.
Continue Reading »Posted in Database Management Systems, Still-coding, Technology | Tagged ai, ChatGPT, Database, Gemini, JSON Schema, programming, SQL | Leave a Comment »
Back in the mid 1990’s ( The dawn of Internet time), I started a website called http://www.bobsguide.com. Since then it has been extended, rewritten a few times, and is unrecognisable today. I am long since retired, but I thought it would be useful to chart its development and the reasons we made some decisions and not others..
Continue Reading »Posted in Business, Fintech | Tagged Business, digital-marketing, Financial Technology, marketing, Web site development, website | Leave a Comment »
In part 1 I described the somewhat chaotic way we got the bobsguide website started and how it was turned into a business. We had a lot of advice that we needed editorial content to attract the visitors we needed for a really successful site. A lot of people obviously believed the same thing. The web now has a number of financial technology sites with news items, interviews and and opinion pieces1.
So why did I ignore that and focus on a product directory?
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I have been working on my hobby project, which is a generic database updating tool. It uses an extension of the JSON-Schema standard. But how do you deal with a new database from a legacy database.
I found a really simple solution, I asked ChatGTP to produce a JSON-Schema based on a database dump – which happily is a set of SQL statements.
Continue Reading »Posted in Database Management Systems, Still-coding | Tagged Database, json, JSON Schema, programming, SQL, sql-server | Leave a Comment »
In part 1 and part 2 I described how we started the business, and the business model. There was at least one opportunity that came up that didn’t go anywhere.
A few years into the project an opportunity came up. A New York based company was in financial difficulties and was for sale. It was quite affordable, in the low six figures, which we could manage. I was keen on us taking it further,
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