Pinned — 28 Oct 2025 #codingStreet-Smart Coding: 30 Ways to Get Better at Coding Without Losing Your Mind
I spent five years in college learning to code.
A stupid dissertation delayed my graduation. But that’s another story.
Most of my five-year program didn’t prepare me for real-world coding. My real coding journey began at my first job, with one Google search: “how to get good at coding.”
I found a lot of conflicting advice:
“Use comments”
“Don’t use comments”
“Do this”
“Don’t do that”
Arrggg!
It took years of trial and error to learn what worked.
I had to survive on-call shifts, talk to stakeholders, and say “no” politely. More importantly, I had to learn that coding takes more than just syntax.
That’s why I wrote Street-Smart Coding— a roadmap of 30 lessons I wish I had when I started. For every dev who’s ever typed “how to get better at coding” into Google or ChatGPT. (Back in my days, I didn’t have ChatGPT… Wait, I sound like a nostalgic grandpa…)
Preview of the first ~12 pages
Inside “Street-Smart Coding”
This isn’t a textbook. It’s a battle-tested guide for your journey from junior/mid-level to senior.
Some lessons are conventional.
Others were learned the hard way.
And a few are weird.
One lesson comes from a TV show. Nope, not Mr. Robot or Silicon Valley. That’s on Chapter #29. It will teach you about problem-solving.
You’ll learn how to:
Google like a pro
Debug without banging your head against a wall
Communicate clearly with non-tech folks
…and 27 more lessons I learned over ten years of mistakes.
One of the most common criticisms of my books is that I didn’t “come up” with most of the advice I give.
Well… of course I didn’t! You really think I’m going to compete with Aristotle and The Buddha? This advice has been around for thousands of years. I simply repackaged it in interesting and novel ways, changed the emphasis on a few points, and added a couple of my own ideas to spice things up.
That made me think of love songs.
All love songs are:
“I love you and can’t wait to be with you”
“I love you, but there’s someone or something between us”
“I’m with someone else, but the one I truly love is you”
You could probably come up with more categories.
Just because all love songs fall into one of those, it doesn’t make you put your AirPods down and say, “Oh I already hear that.”
And we’ve been writing and listening to love songs since we have human experience.
Creativity is repackaging old ideas in new ways.
It’s playing with fixed structures. It’s stealing some multiple sources.
It’s filtering old ideas throught our lenses and stories.
Not every single day is productive.
Sometimes writing a daily post is a piece of cake.
Other times, a daily post is just to avoid breaking the chain.
In recent months, I went through an episode of stress that disrupted my sleep.
Writing didn’t flow for quite a while.
No aha moments. No rushing to capture a thunder of creativity.
To spark the joy of writing, I started a secret book project.
No deadlines. No announcements.
No other expectations than enjoying the process.
Since then, I’ve written one story after a casual encounter at a grocery store, another story after running errands on Halloween all day long, and a piece of poetry for the first time… and I’ve had to stop doing the dishes to write down ideas before I forget them.
Now that I connect the dots, I’ve done my best writing when I feel free.
To get your juices flowing, you need to sit down to write without pressure, guilt, or judgment. Just play!
Quick update: This week, I finished the first draft of Street-Smart Coding in the Age of AI and already reached out to some of my loyal beta readers. You can preorder your ebook copy starting at just $1.
In case you missed last email, Street-Smart Coding in the Age of AI is book #3 in my Street-Smart Coding collection. It’s a short and actionable guide to help you leverage AI without becoming dependent on it. The first draft sits around 5K words. You can finish it over coffee.
Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week:
#3. If you still use Postman, be aware it was at some point installing Claude plugins and startup hooks. Here are the findings on the official GitHub repo (3min). I just uninstalled it.
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… Preorder your copy of Street-Smart Coding in the Age of AI. A short and actionable guide to leverage AI without losing your skills.
Em dashes were a clear giveaway of AI-generated content.
But you can instruct your LLM of choice not to use them and still sound robotic. It’s. Not. That. It’s. This. Beep… Beep…
Maybe typos and imperfect sentences are a sign of human-written content.
To show there was a human behind my words, I stopped using AI to proof-read my writing.
You can instruct your LLM to add typos too.
I stopped writing 1,000-word SEO-optimized posts long time ago.
These days, anything longer than a tweet counts towards publishing.
100-200 words is my sweet spot.
AI can always add more fluff… and more fluff.
I made a list of contributions and achievements in the past year.
I did a quick market research. OK, by research, I mean I asked Gemini.
I came up with a range and an anchor point.
I reached out to an ex-coworker to ask how he asked for a raise.
I reread the chapters on negotiation from Choose Yourself Guide to Wealth.
I wrote a script and had a “what would you do in my shoes?” line ready as fallback.
I texted my “boss” asking for a time slot to discuss a raise.
I was expecting to jump into a call to present my case and “negotiate.”
Instead he asked if we could do it via direct messages.
I texted something like, “It’s been a while, blah, blah, blah… My current rate is $X and I have in mind something between $Y and $Z.”
He replied, “let me check and get back to you.”
Radio silence!
In a 1-on-1 negotiation, you get an immediate answer.
Either “sorry, we can’t do that” or “here’s what I can do for you.”
But this time, a loop was opened in my mind.
The next day, about the same time, I got a text, “Good news! Blah, blah, blah… We are supporting your request to increase your rate to $Y, effective $insertDate. Blah, blah, blah…“
The fastest, easiest, and most awkward salary or rate negotiation I ever had.
Lesson: Always go prepared. Always have a salary range and anchor point in mind. “Ask and you shall receive,” Jesus said. And maybe that could be as fast and easy as some messages via Discord or Slack.
If you’re starting out or already ahead in your coding journey, check out Career Lessons From the Trenches, my free 7-day email course where I distill 10+ years of career lessons into 7 short emails–to help you navigate your coding career.
