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The Survey of the Works

of Tommy Long

Field Book · London · 2022 to date

IThe Sheet

Tommy Long’s contribution record, January 2022 to today, drawn as a survey. Each column is a week and each cell a day. The more contributions, the higher the ground, and a day under five is sea.

IIThe Surveyor

Tommy Long, software engineer, London. Building software since 2008; at present Technical Lead at Equals Money, a UK fintech, across five product domains, and chair of its AI Centre of Excellence. The essays are in the Journal beside this book.

IIIConventional Signs

Relief

Contoura step in contributions
Index contour, figuredcontributions a day
Spot heightthe day’s count
Hachureswhere the count changes fast
Land tintsby contributions a day

Water

Seathe quiet days; its arms are the weekends

Land

Strip fieldsworking ground, a strip to each week
Woodlandthe flat high ground
Dry-stone wallthe steepest breaks
Settlementssteady weeks, from barn to village

Occasions

Landing in a named baya holiday
House on a named sounda week or more away
Track off the foot of the columna work trip
Trig pointa planning day or conference
Marsha bank holiday
Bench mark, numberedan essay in the Journal
Marker horizonan AI model released
Unsurveyedthe months to come

Drawn from the record each night at the Surveyor’s Office, London. Set in Sorts Mill Goudy, Petrona and Archivo Narrow. The ground, the water and the lettering are drawn by hand in the browser, and the light falling on them is London’s, at the hour of reading.

memorandum

Mark IV · 26 March 2026

The New Programming Language

I just built my first Python app. I still don't know how to write Python.

I've just built my very first Python app! 🐍

The catch? I haven't got a clue how to write Python.

In fact, I didn't even realise the AI had chosen Python until the app was up, running and completely sorted. I just asked for a solution and it cracked on.

And quite frankly, I don't care. It works. Job done.

It really hammered home a point for me: faffing about with coding syntax is no longer the barrier to entry it used to be. We've moved from an era of writing code to an era of defining intent.

Knowing the exact language doesn't matter. Understanding the problem you're trying to solve does.

Clear thinking and a solid brief are the new programming languages.

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