Just Some Code

I recently watched Codie Sanchez’s video on 10 upgrades to make once you have more money. It reminded me of a 10-idea list I wrote. Here it is. Healthcare. No more ER waiting lines. Shoes, mattress, and chair. No more back pain. Diet and food. No more cheap fast foods. Library. No more ebooks or pirated books. Dedicated reading room. No more reading on the couch. Air conditioning in common areas. No more heatwaves in summer. Workspace. No more virtual backgrounds hiding mess in meetings. Home…

My days feel different when I start with email, book sales, or social media. Daniel Miessler wrote in Creativity vs Consumption: If there’s one metric to watch for managing your happiness level, it’s Creativity vs Consumption. After a 1-week detox, I learned screens don’t energize me, even when used for inspiration. To put limits on my consumption time: I set a timer for 15 minutes to read blog aggregators and news I have an alarm to signal the end of my working day On most Sundays, I go analog…

A friend’s WhatsApp status showed a tech YouTuber giving him a warm shoutout. It made me think of my heroes and mentors in my coding and writing career. #1. I’ve had role models, but I’ve never called them mentors. Someone you want as a mentor is usually too busy to accept the title. #2. At one of my early jobs, I worked next to my team architects. One of them helped me become a senior coder. Since then, I consider him a mentor. #3. If finding a mentor seems hard, books are the best mentors.…

Being a bilingual speaker, Joel wrote about his struggle to read books and their translations: I just can’t decide what to do when it comes to translated works at all. Be it old books in English translated to Spanish—or modern ones to be fair. And what about Spanish books that I could read in English, or picking between Spanish and English for books that are in a completely different language? I’ve had the same struggle, so I came up with a reading rule: Read non-fiction books in their original…

This 2-hour interview made me reconsider what a good story is. I don’t know how, but I ended up watching an interview with Matthew Dicks on storytelling. Here’s what I learned: #1. A story is about change over time. It’s about a transformation or realization. I believed this, then something happened, and now I believe this. Unlike an anecdote, a story is something you will remember for days, months, or even years. “A story are the best meals of your life.” #2. Make them care. Nobody wants to…

“Hey, I was thinking… Many years ago, I don’t know how, but my mom had to meet your mom…“ he said, leaning closer with a beer in his hand. I’m at my nanny’s 70th birthday party. She took care of my sister and me as kids—and still does. Her son sat next to me. Most guests had left, and only family stayed. “… All that had to happen, so you can be here with us now. Life is already written.” I nodded while listening to his words. “Sometimes I think it is,” I said. My mom passed away months earlier.…

Hey there. Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week: #1. Here’s an alternative to avoid cognitive debt (5min). #2. With AI, almost everyone is euphoric but nothing works (4min). #3. “Don’t judge a book by its cover” is wrong. That’s what covers are for. But what if you could judge a book by its first page instead? (1min). #4. Last week, I discovered makestopmotion. A free, open-source, and local stop-motion app. And in case you missed it, I wrote on my blog about my 8-year…

Every disappointment, breakup, or failure turns into inspiration. A disappointment becomes a short story. A breakup becomes a poem. A failure becomes a lessons-learned post. Writing helps you revisit, process, and reframe. Nothing is wasted. It’s all material. I share some of my life lessons in 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life.

After tuning the radio, the taxi driver found a station broadcasting a presidential speech. The president was just days away from leaving the office. I had finished my weekly groceries and was heading home. It was raining, and I rushed home after forgetting to close the windows. So I didn’t put my bags in the trunk, but on the front seat. “That guy talks a lot… He was born to be a politician,” the taxi driver said, breaking the silence after hearing my destination. “Those roles need someone who…

Yesterday, I came back home after a 3-hour road trip. With no phone reception or WiFi, I had no other choice than to sit with my thoughts, watching the passing trees and road signs until I fell sleep. It was the longest “do nothing” moment I’ve had in a while. If you think you can’t leave your phone aside, take a road trip or a flight. Not just for the traveling part, but for the unplugging time.

All productivity advice can be summarized into one single tip: Follow your energy levels. Not in a woo-woo sense, but be aware of your energy levels. Tackle your most important work when they’re at its highest. Learn to rise them: exercise, laugh, or walk. Keep your glucose spikes under control. Notion dashboards, todo lists, and weekly goals aren’t useful if you don’t have any energy to tackle them.

Eight years ago, I published my first post—without any idea what I was doing I was starting my coding career, and one day I googled “how to get better at coding.” I kept finding “start a blog.” So I did. I built a blog on top of my GitHub account. I still host my blog there, after all these years. The early days My first post was a tutorial to compile hours of googling. OK, “tutorial” is a strong word. It was like a word vomit. Here’s my very first post, still unchanged as a reminder. My blog…

I didn’t mean it, but last month I ended up participating in JulyReply. Here are my replies: #1. re: You’re Born to F*cking Create. A simple cure for burnout. #2. My Favorite Seth’s Riffs. Seth Godin published his best lines. I wrote my reactions. #3. re: I Started a “Dirt Notebook”. Beautiful notebooks hold back my bad ideas. And often what you need is bad ideas. #4. re: “Who Is Quitting?” Hits Hacker News Front Page. You know something is happening in the tech world, when Hacker News features…

Hey there. Here are 4 links worth sharing this week: #1. I didn’t use magazines, but I learned coding by typing examples from textbooks. It isn’t as fast as using an LLM. It was something else entirely (3min). #2. One of the lessons from Street-Smart Coding Manifesto is to work on your communication skills. Here are 10 comm rules nobody teaches you (10 min). #3. Productivity isn’t about IDE plugins or AI. That isn’t what matters most (2min). #4. Expertise comes from caring about details. Don’t…

For weeks, I’ve been struggling with a personal decision. I’ve come up with scenarios, built a decision tree, and used AI to analyze my options. It’s made me so anxious, it’s often the first thing I think of when I wake up. Yesterday, wanting a different perspective, I called my best friend to ask him what he would do in my shoes. Among other things, he told me, “you can’t think like an engineer all the time.” He was right! I don’t want to screw this up, and I’ve approached it like a coder. But…

I don’t want to write the same book twice. I challenge myself to make every book different. So far, I’ve experimented with formats: a choose-your-own-adventure, a 10-point list, and a one-idea-per-chapter book. For my latest books, 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life and Street-Smart Coding Manifesto, I’ve skipped the prologue and the introduction. From Write Useful Books, I learned to start non-fiction at Chapter 1. It’s like dropping viewers into the TV show drama instead of…

Street-Smart Coding Manifesto Crafting clean code alone won’t save you or make you stand out. That’s not the real edge. Why this book? When I started, I thought my only job was writing code. I obsessed over syntax and lines of code. I ignored meetings, calls, and emails. I only wanted to code, code, and code. But I was wrong. After trial and error, and even getting fired, I realized: Code alone won’t save you. It won’t make you stand out either. It’s always something beyond symbols: The skills…

Nik wrote in Make Your Mentors Ageless: Make your mentors ageless, and, at minimum, you’ll gain one awesome new trait: the humility to learn from anyone, no matter their relative position to you in this life. I don’t like the word “mentor.” It scares people away. Someone you want as mentor is probably too busy for that role. Don’t ask anyone to be your mentor. I’ve never had official mentors, people holding the title. But mentors are everywhere. Reading one of James Altucher’s books I learn, we…

Almost everybody In my first AMA asked the same thing: What helped you overcome burnout? The answer is simple: Bring back a sense of joy to your life. Tim Denning wrote about it in You’re born to f*cking create: If you feel stuck, the easiest way I know how is to start writing publicly. If you’ve got other creative goals, then do those. But make sure every day you are creating things and putting them out into the world to see what comes back. Make creativity your #1 priority. Burnout is…

This month, my blog turned 8 years old…and my dev.to account turned 7. To celebrate it, I ran an AMA session on dev.to. For some moments, it felt I was talking to bots. Most likely true, if you also believe in the Dead Internet Theory. I didn’t take too much time to answer questions that sound like AI. Here are my favorite questions: Before vs Now What changed in your perspective and what makes a Senior Software Engineer…Senior? For me, there’s one true sign of being Senior: when you stop…

Hey there. Quick update: Street-Smart Coding Manifesto is almost done. No more hunting for typos. If you preordered, I’m sending a preview next week. And as usual, here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week: #1. Google search (if that’s still a thing) and LLMs are great for quick facts. When was America discovered? But the real problem is offloading our thinking to AI (10min), even for simple tasks. #2. LLMs often reply “You’re absolutely right.” For your next project or idea, get…

In 2023, I burned out. It was the darkest moment of my life. It was a long process on the way down…and a longer one on the way up. It took me about a year to wake up with a sense of purpose again. What helped me can be summarized into one line: Taking care of my health (by doing something for my mind, body, and spirit every day) and bringing a sense of joy and fulfillment to my life every day (by going back to some of my hobbies just for fun). Writing played a big role. It worked like therapy.…

It’s sales day, and the whole grocery store is crowded. “We have to be patient, right?” a guy said to me. I’m in the butchery section. The guy is frantically walking from one side of the aisle to the other, phone in his hand. “I have 70,” he said when I asked what turn he had. “I have 94, and I only need one chicken breast,” I told him while taking my U-shaped ticket out of my pocket. The display shows 64 in red LED lights. We both laughed. He knew I was more screwed than he was. A few minutes…

Street-Smart Coding Manifesto is almost here. This past month, I’ve been writing a book to help you become a street-smart coder. It’s my case against syntax obsession to stand out as a coder. This week, I heard back from my awesome beta readers: Ricardo Cardona and Darren Lin. Their feedback helped me simplify chapters and cut duplication. Here’s some of their feedback. “What I liked the most is that it is actually relatable, experiences we’ve all been through at some point in our careers. You…

Blogging for 8 years hasn’t been unicorns and rainbows. I abandoned my blog for months. I’ve also wanted to quit more than once. Even when I preach to write like nobody is reading, my last 100 daily posts made me question if I should keep a blog. Maybe YouTube, Substack, or a social media platform aren’t that bad after all. Then I remember Seth Godin sharing about his 10,000 posts. That’s 25 years of blogging. That reminds me that the real hack is sticking for years. I’m reflecting on my 8-year…

Like an 8-year-old boy, my blog has grown and changed. In case you missed it, yesterday my blog turned 8. The project and habit I’ve kept for the longest. Here’s what I’m doing differently: #1. No more SEO-optimized posts. Google killed blogging as a business. Then LLMs put the last nail in the coffin. I wrote my first posts to rank high in Google search results. I chose subjects and headlines from Google’s “People also asked” and related searches. Not anymore. #2. More subjects apart from…

Eight years ago, I wrote my first blog post. I didn’t know what I was doing. After googling “how to get better at coding,” I found start a blog. That’s what I did. By the way, that search inspired Street-Smart Coding, my first coding book. I spent days choosing a Jekyll theme and a name. I turned hours of googling into a post and hit publish. OK, I vomited some words onto a page. That first post is still unedited as a reminder. That’s how I started blogging. Here I am, 816 posts later. 624…

Hey there. Quick update: Street-Smart Coding Manifesto is almost done. No more hunting for typos. If you preordered, I’m sending a preview next week. And as usual, here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week: #1. Google search (if that’s still a thing) and LLMs are great for quick facts. When was America discovered? But the real problem is offloading our thinking to AI (10min), even for simple tasks. #2. LLMs often reply “You’re absolutely right.” For your next project or idea, get…

Since 2024, I’ve kept ideapads to capture bad ideas. Back then, by pure chance, I found the concept of becoming an idea machine. That’s writing 10 bad ideas about anything. Every. Single. Day. That habit has helped me write books and keep my creative juices flowing. It’s been so helpful that I made it Idea #5 in my book, 10 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life And Could Change Yours Too. That book itself started as a 10-idea list. But before starting to write bad ideas, I faced the…

While catching up with ex-coworkers, the conversation inevitable turned to the future of coding. By the end of the evening, “You’re absolutely right!” had become an inside joke. That’s what ChatGPT seem to say when it’s wrong. Each time someone asked a question, they got an “You’re absolutely right!” AI answers aren’t 100% reliable. Coding’s short feedback loops make AI mistakes evident. Now imagine trusting every answer just because “AI said that.” Medical recommendations, investment…