I'm Launching Street-Smart Coding: 30 Lessons to Help You Code Like a Pro (the Roadmap I Wish I Had Starting Out)

Pinned — 28 Oct 2025 #coding

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…)

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.

Now they’re yours.

Get your copy of Street-Smart Coding here and skip the years of trial and error. For launch week only: Pay what you want—even $1 or $2.

10 Ways My Blogging Changed After 8 Years

19 Jul 2026 #writing

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 coding. I don’t know what category to put my blog on.

coding, csharp, and career are still the categories with more posts. But this isn’t a coding blog anymore. It’s more like a workshop in a garage with the door always open.

#3. From tutorials to lessons to stories. As I mastered coding, I took public notes in tutorials. While recovering from burnout, I shared lessons I wish I had known. These days, I like my blog to be a collection of stories, thoughts, and observations.

#4. From bi-weekly to daily posting. To please the SEO gods, I wrote every other week. Too many blog posts was a bad idea for SEO. Not anymore.

After my first writing class, I started to write daily. I was shocked to hear I should write daily. I thought I had nothing to say. But I haven’t stopped since Nov 1st, 2024.

#5. A new definition of post. A post isn’t a keyword-optimized 2,000-word piece anymore.

A descriptive headline and a few lines count as a post. Anything longer than a tweet works to call it a day.

I also stopped adding covers and feature images. Posting daily made them a waste of time. An idea I stole from Seth Godin.

#6. Few meta-sentences. I don’t like them…and I don’t use them. We don’t pick up a phone and say, “In this call, I’m going to share…“ And before hanging up, we don’t say, “In this call, we covered…“

#7. Each sentence on its own line. This is a writing exercise I learned recently. A writer’s work is to write good sentences. A good piece is just a chain of good sentences.

Sometimes I publish with each sentence on its own line.

#8. My blog as my central hub. In some shape or form, all my ideas start and end on my blog. No more exclusive content for social media.

#9. Offer a helpful next step. Just like Netflix offering you a similar show. There’s no shame in offering something (free or paid) at the end of a post. Making money online doesn’t have to be that hard: offer a helpful next step.

#10. Books are my main vehicle. I don’t ask for coffee anymore or plug my coding courses. Who still watches tutorials or reads technical content anyway?

Instead, my best ideas end up in books. That’s my horizon goal.

Books have longer lifespans. We’re still reading the Odyssey, Bible, and Meditations. Maybe one day, in the distant future, people will read mine.

I do drink coffee, but I don’t like to ask for it. If you’d like to support this blog, grab one of my short and actionable my books on coding and personal growth. You can pay what you want via Gumroad. They’re also available in Kindle and paperback formats via Amazon.

Today My Blog Turns Eight Years Old

18 Jul 2026 #writing

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 written since Nov 1st, 2024. That’s when I decided to write every day.

My blog helped me overcome burnout, gave me purpose when I felt lost, became my portfolio, earned me my first paycheck online, gave me confidence to write books… It’s my cabinet of curiosities and my time capsule.

These days, my horizon goal is turning parts of my life into books. My blog was the starting point and is my playground.

Writing is a habit that changed my life. That’s why I keep doing it.

I do drink coffee, but I don’t like to ask for it. If you’d like to support this blog, grab one of my books. You can pay what you want via Gumroad. They’re also available in Kindle and paperback formats via Amazon.

Friday Links: Offloading thinking, reality check, and reading more books

17 Jul 2026 #mondaylinks

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 a punch in reality (5min).

#3. Want to read more books? Here’s how (9min). And no, you don’t need hacks.

#4. AI has made code so cheap that it’s turning software into marketing (9min).

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And in case you missed it, I wrote on my blog about the drop of technical content (2min) and 7 random but interesting ideas I found recently (3min).

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(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… Street-Smart Coding Manifesto. My case against syntax obsession to stand out. Because real impact comes from skills outside your IDE.

Keep coding smarter,

Cesar

re: I Started a "Dirt Notebook" (Beautiful Ones Hold Back My Bad Ideas)

16 Jul 2026 #misc

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 question of where to write them.

Those days, a friend came from France on her vacation. She brought me a Mona Lisa notebook as a gift, likely from the Louvre.

It was simply too beautiful to fill it with my bad ideas. Afraid of “damaging” it, I stapled recycled paper into an ideapad. A notebook small enough to only write 10 lines, one per idea.

I went through the same experience Kwist shared in this post:

“In an attempt to change [keeping clean and tidy notebooks], I’ve started a dedicated “dirt notebook” now…I’m using an old, empty notebook that I found lying around the other day. The paper quality is pretty bad; every kind of fountain pen ink bleeds through so I’m forced to use cheap ballpoints and it doesn’t open flat, which makes it hard to take clean-looking notes in.”

Don’t let a beautiful notebook or perfect pens restrain your ideas. The roughest paper ignites your best ideas.

re: Punch Yourself in the Face with Reality

15 Jul 2026 #misc

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 strategies, even dating advice… That’s dangerous.

Adi shared a similar thought in Punch Yourself in the Face with Reality about entrepreneurship, startups, and AI:

“I know you want to use AI as an escape. It is so tempting. You get to sit in your bubble and imagine everything and see it come to life and your agent buddy will keep cheering you on while you get nothing done with your life. And I think that’s the biggest danger of AI. You convince yourself that you are doing something useful when you are not.”

LLMs are designed to appear helpful and confident. They tap into our confirmation bias.

LLMs aren’t reliable and we aren’t absolutely right—all the time.