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.
Quick update: I’m about 70% through the first draft of Street-Smart Coding Manifesto. Of course, it’s a rough draft that needs editing. But I came up with 4 traits of a street-smart coder.
And as usual, here are 4.5 links I thought were worth sharing this week:
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… Preorder your digital copy of Street-Smart Coding Manifesto—starting at just $1—and become a coder who stands out beyond syntax. If you’d like to support the work, contribute $5 or more and I’ll thank you in the Acknowledgments.
That’s what Greg Baugues’ daughter asked him after her first encounter with vibe-coding.
She was curious if there was a time when we had to type symbols, one by one.
It isn’t about what symbols to type
Coding used to be about the craft:
Mastering symbols and perfecting the lines of code.
If you knew what to type and could make it work, you could find your way as a coder.
Its main page is an entangled mess of over 40K lines of Visual Basic code.
Migrating it to anything newer is time-consuming.
To ease the pain of migrating it, management suggested starting some refactoring work.
The migration has dragged on for years, still far from completion.
The refactoring work won’t show any visible progress on a late project.
Prompt an LLM to migrate it to Blazor isn’t hard.
But its output will only create more problems, without the mental models of the codebase.
The challenge is deciding the right approach: refactoring, migration, or rewrite.
The real edge is: knowing coding is solving problems and choosing what problems to solve.
When coding is cheap, your edge comes from outside your IDE. To help you grow beyond syntax, check Street-Smart Coding Manifesto.
Building 100% reusable components no one will reuse
A street-smart coder:
#1. Writes the right code at the right time. Starting massive refactorings just because “people recommend it online” isn’t always wise.
#2. Understands there’s no perfect code, only tradeoffs.Not every piece of code needs to scale or be perfectly clean.
Not every project needs Domain Driven Design, microservices, or the latest buzzwords.
Everything is a tradeoff.
#3. Stays detached from their code.
Coding isn’t a solo sport.
Prefer simple, consistent code others can inherit.
It’s a team sport: code for other humans.
#4. Speaks the right lingo with the right people.
Not everyone involved in a project cares about the same details.
Be an interpreter between technical and business people.
Want to go deeper? Street-Smart Coding Manifesto shows how to stand out with more than syntax. Because real impact comes from skills outside your IDE.
When I started coding, I thought my only job was writing code. And I was wrong.
I went to the extreme, obsessing over syntax and lines of code.
I didn’t want to attend meetings, answer my phone, or reply to emails.
Those were the days I had a cubicle.
After trial and error, I realized code neither saved me nor made me stand out.
It was always something beyond symbols on text files.
That’s why I’m writing this book: the prequel to Street-Smart Coding.
It’s my case against obsessing over syntax to stand out.
A manifesto for mastering the skills that create real impact.
I’m calling it: Street-Smart Coding Manifesto.
This one is about the why, while Street-Smart Coding is about the how.
It’s for junior and intermediate coders—and my younger self—who want to create impact beyond code.
#1. Hands first, then computer.
Following one lesson from Steal Like An Artist, this book started with pen and paper.
I used my 10-idea lists to plan it and sticky notes to outline it.
#2. Marketing from day 1.“People will come” isn’t 100% true.
Instead of waiting for a first draft, I’m announcing it early:
like I did in past Friday Links and now in this post.
#3. The Mini Book W technique.
Unlike Street-Smart Coding, this isn’t a “choose your own adventure” book, but a “start to finish” book.
To outline it, I’m using the W technique from Chris Stanley’s Mini Book Model.
One chapter to answer what, why, and how to become a street-smart coder.
#4. Succinct writing.
Stealing Derek Siver’s writing style, I’m planning chapters to be short and self-contained.
Each chapter covers one core idea, not long textbook lessons.
This is a short and actionable you can finish over coffee.
Preorder Street-Smart Coding Manifesto starting at just $1 and start mastering the skills that will set you apart, giving you confidence and impact beyond code. If you’d like to support the work, contribute $5 or more and I’ll thank you in the Acknowledgments.
