iwhalen.com

Rogue-Bench

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

Rogue-Bench

After a couple months of work, she's finally done. Rogue-Bench is my contribution to the already overflowing list of LLM benchmarks.

This is an extension of my previous work here. So check that out first for some context.

Death by dog food

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

Death by dog food

I've been slacking on blog posts. So this one is a filler episode at best.

I learned the term dogfooding recently and it really resonated.

I'm overloading the term a little bit in this blog but, I hope the story still works.

Learning Zig part 2

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

Learning Zig part 2

Here is my second entry in my "learning Zig" series. Likely the final.

I feel I have seen enough syntax and am ready to build something.

For my first post on this topic, see here.

Playing Rogue with LLMs

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

Playing Rogue with LLMs

Ever wonder if LLMs can play Rogue? I sure did!

It seems like a match made in heaven. Fully text based game meets text enjoying model. In this post, I detail a little bit about putting together a little package to make this possible.

Don't get your hope up though. I don't do any long running benchmarks.

Check out the code for this post here.

Software quality assurance as AI enablement

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

Software quality assurance as AI enablement

I recently gave this idea a whirl to good effect. Instead of saying "we should use static type analysis", we now can say "my coding agent needs to use static analysis."

Set up your dream codebase with this one simple trick. Product managers hate him!

My journey from ALife to AI

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

My journey from ALife to AI

A little trip down memory lane.

My journey in computing started with a regular computer and ended up in a regular computer with sunglasses.

Artificial life was my doorway to those sunglasses.

Learning Zig part 1

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

Learning Zig part 1

As promised in my project goals for 2026, I'm trying to learn Zig.

The first step here has been going through the Introduction to Zig book.

I paused my (slow) progress to reflect on the first 4 chapters of the book and Zig as a language.

Project ideas for 2026

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

Project ideas for 2026

This is a collection of ideas for side projects.

I'm trying to learn Zig. So, there will be some projects appropriate for that.

But I'll also put in some ideas for Python-appropriate projects (my usual language).

Thoughts on NeurIPS 2025

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

Thoughts on NeurIPS 2025

I had the pleasure to be sent to NeurIPS by my employer earlier this month. Or, at least I was supposed to. An unexpected flu meant I was attending virtually. Here are some general thoughts on the event.

It's been a while since the conference. But, better late than never!

Pumpkin crunch cake recipe

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

Pumpkin crunch cake recipe

A little recipe that I wanted to post for safekeeping. Certainly not unique, but it's special to me.

Ibis compatibility checker

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

Ibis compatibility checker

I'm a fan of the Ibis framework. To me, dataFrame APIs feel great and leaving pure Python to write a SQL query in a nasty triple-quoted string does not.

In this post, I motivate and give a proof of concept for an Ibis "compatibility checker" where, given an Ibis expression, the checker will tell you which backends it can be run on.

This post isn't meant to sell Ibis, just motivate why I think it could be useful for a specific set of people.

Code for this post can be found here.

The Pybrary of Babel

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

The Pybrary of Babel

This post is an exploration into the Library of Babel. Specifically, trying to get an idea of how many readable pages of books there are. I used "runnable Python program" as a proxy for readability.

In this post, there are slight spoilers for the novella A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck. So, buyer beware.

Code for this post can be found here.

Baby's first blog post

Ian Whalen — Sat, 30 May 2026 13:23:00 +0000

Baby's first blog post

This one started as a test post. Originally, I wanted to ensure all the bells and whistles are working. And, I guess that includes being able to see the test online as well. So, for now, it will stay.