Metrics on dplabs — Software Engineering & Technology Consultancy

Evaluating LLM Applications: Beyond Vibe Checks

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most teams evaluate their LLM applications by asking them a few questions and deciding whether the answers look right. This is not evaluation — it’s a vibe check. It doesn’t scale, doesn’t catch regressions, and doesn’t provide any basis for measuring improvement over time.

Systematic LLM evaluation is harder than evaluating deterministic software. The outputs are probabilistic, quality is multidimensional, and the correct answer often isn’t a single string. These are difficulties, not reasons to skip evaluation.

Spring Boot Observability: Metrics, Tracing, and Logs That Actually Help

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Spring Boot 3.x has strong observability support built in. Spring Boot Actuator, Micrometer for metrics, Micrometer Tracing (built on OpenTelemetry), and structured logging all work out of the box with minimal configuration.

The gap between “instrumented” and “observable” is wider than it looks. Adding dependencies and enabling endpoints is instrumentation. Being able to answer “why are 3% of requests failing between the payment service and the inventory service, and since when?” is observability.