TT5: It Depends

January 29, 2026

This weekly email is my curated selection of interesting and useful topics related to BIM, design, and technology. I aim to provide you with some good information and a few laughs along the way. So, what did I find interesting this week? Read down to find out!

---

Ten years ago, I stood before a conference room in Scottsdale, Arizona, and asked the RTC NA audience to vote: Dynamo or macros? The crowd picked Dynamo—not because it was more powerful, but because it was easier to learn. This week, I revisited that question, and while the tools have changed dramatically, the underlying tension hasn't. The right answer is still "it depends." It just depends on different things now.

 

That idea, that simple frameworks rarely survive contact with reality, kept showing up as I pulled together this week's links. Whether we're talking about automation tools, AI strategies, knowledge management, or even how our own minds work, the pattern repeats: the neat mental model we start with turns out to be a lot messier and a lot more interesting than we first thought.

 

#1: Code vs Node: 10 Years Later

I finally wrote down what I've been thinking about since AI changed the automation conversation. The short version: Dynamo still wins for geometric exploration where you need visual feedback. Code wins for anything you'll use more than once. And vibe coding has collapsed the learning curve that used to make this an either/or decision. The real skill now is knowing which tool fits the problem at hand.

 

Guido Maciocci offers a thoughtful take on why Autodesk is positioning Forma as its AI foundation for AEC. It's not just another tool. Forma is an attempt to build the data layer and analysis infrastructure that AI actually needs to be useful. Whether you're bullish or skeptical on Autodesk's direction, this piece helps you understand the strategy behind the moves.

 

Christopher Parsons at Knowledge Architecture makes a compelling case that AI "knowledge agents" won't replace your experts. Instead, they'll amplify them. That concept stuck with me. These are "digital ambassadors," not "digital twins." They handle the 101-level questions so senior people can focus on the hard problems that actually need human judgment. If your firm is thinking about how to scale expertise without burning out your best people, this is worth your time.

 

 

#4: Where's My Friggin' Hockey Stick?

Evan Troxel's conversation with Zach Kron is one of the most honest discussions I've heard about what it actually means to move from designing buildings to designing systems. They dig into the trade-offs of shipping imperfect tools, the uncomfortable reality of growth pressure, and why architectural thinking still matters even when you're building software instead of structures. If you've ever wondered whether a tech-adjacent career path makes sense, start here.

 

 

#5: What Exactly is Energy?

Scott Young takes the common advice to "manage your energy, not your time" and asks what energy actually is. Turns out the science is a mess. The ego depletion research that once seemed rock-solid has been through the wringer and back. The practical takeaway: if energy isn't a single resource like a battery, there are more levers we can pull to get more out of ourselves. Sometimes the complicated answer is the useful one.

 

 

That's all from me. I hope you're having a great week.

Michael