Bill Chambers bllchmbrs

Question: Should I avoid using RAG for my AI application after reading that "RAG is dead" for coding agents?

Many developers are confused about when and how to use RAG after reading articles claiming "RAG is dead." Understanding what RAG actually means versus the narrow marketing definitions will help you make better architectural decisions for your AI applications.

Answer: The viral article claiming RAG is dead specifically argues against using naive vector database retrieval for autonomous coding agents, not RAG as a whole. This is a crucial distinction that many developers miss due to misleading marketing.

RAG simply means Retrieval-Augmented Generation - using retrieval to provide relevant context that improves your model's output. The core principle remains essential: your LLM needs the right context to generate accurate answers. The question isn't whether to use retrieval, but how to retrieve effectively.

For coding

Common Options

-#, --progress-bar Make curl display a simple progress bar instead of the more informational standard meter.

-b, --cookie <name=data> Supply cookie with request. If no =, then specifies the cookie file to use (see -c).

-c, --cookie-jar <file name> File to save response cookies to.

These links no longer work. Springer have pulled the free plug.

Graduate texts in mathematics

duplicates = multiple editions

A Classical Introduction to Modern Number Theory, Kenneth Ireland Michael Rosen

What

Roll your own iPython Notebook server with Amazon Web Services (EC2) using their Free Tier.

What are we using? What do you need?

An active AWS account. First time sign-ups are eligible for the free tier for a year
One Micro Tier EC2 Instance
With AWS we will use the stock Ubuntu Server AMI and customize it.
Anaconda for Python.
Coffee/Beer/Time

tmux shortcuts & cheatsheet

start new:

tmux

start new with session name:

tmux new -s myname

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	Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or
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	import paramiko
	k = paramiko.RSAKey.from_private_key_file("/Users/whatever/Downloads/mykey.pem")
	c = paramiko.SSHClient()
	c.set_missing_host_key_policy(paramiko.AutoAddPolicy())
	print "connecting"
	c.connect( hostname = "www.acme.com", username = "ubuntu", pkey = k )
	print "connected"
	commands = [ "/home/ubuntu/firstscript.sh", "/home/ubuntu/secondscript.sh" ]
	for command in commands:
	print "Executing {}".format( command )