What AI Tools, MCP Servers, and Skills Actually Do (opens in new tab)

I remember being very confused when I first heard about an LLM's ability to request code execution. This feature has been called various names: tool, action, plugin, function. Now the terminology is settling on a single name: tool. However, talking to other developers and reading comments online, I see the confusion has shifted elsewhere. Some argue that, with the introduction of skills by Anthropic, MCP no longer makes sense, and others aren't convinced of the usefulness of MCP compared to d...