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.
#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).
To celebrate my blog’s 8-year anniversary, last week I ran an AMA on dev.to. In case you missed it, here are my favorite questions (9min).
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… Street-Smart Coding Manifesto. A case against syntax obsession. Because real impact comes from skills outside your IDE.
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 life is mostly about daring and taking risks.
“Live without regrets,” he said near the end of our call. That’s what I needed to hear because I was about to give up.
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.
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 starting with a director’s commentary.
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 outside the IDE.
That realization inspired my next book: Street-Smart Coding Manifesto.
It’s for junior and intermediate coders—and my younger self—who want to create impact beyond code.
Preview of the first ~10 pages
What’s inside?
It’s a short guide, you can finish over coffee, to the mindset shifts and skills that create real impact.
It includes 17 lessons to help you become a street-smart coder:
