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.
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.
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.
“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.
“Is it just me, or has anyone noticed that articles on dev.to don’t get as many reads/views as they used to before?”
Yes! On dev.to, Medium, and on the Internet overall.
There’s no point in writing how-to tutorials anymore, unless you’re starting your coding or writing journey with TIL posts.
For step-by-step guidance on coding tasks, there’s a magical text-area that seems to understands you and spits out answers fast.
Less people are landing on blogs and tutorials after Google pushed instant answers. For a couple of years, my series on unit testing and LINQ drove the most traffic. Even, I went “viral” with a a post on unit testing private methods. These days, they barely have any traffic.
And when was the last time you Google or open StackOverflow when stuck? Your behavior as reader tells a lot about what to do as a writer.
If you’re starting out your coding journey, I still recommend you to write online. That’s one of the lessons I cover in Street-Smart Coding—The roadmap I wish I had when I started.
#4. “Before cellphones, I always had my students carry a pen in their back pocket and an index card. And then get home, take the index card out and add it to the pile.”
The other day, I almost lost a story because of a dying battery.
That’s why I’ve learned to keep something to write, apart from my phone.
I keep old receipts and a tiny pencil on my wallet.
#5. “When you decide to be a writer, everything is grist for the mill. Every experience, every thought, you put it all down, and take out the boring stuff.”
Everything is material.
#6. For dialog, “You can only say ‘said’.”
The rhythm and speech should give away who’s talking.
#7. “You can do anything and get away with it, if you don’t lose me.”
Does it sound good? Do readers like it? Good. There are no rules.
#8. “One of the great gifts of being a writer is that it can help you get your curiosity restored.”
Writing is therapy.
Showing up to write 200 words saved me from burnout.
That’s why I keep writing.
#9. “Tell me a story. Make me care.”
It reminds me of James Altucher’s ABS: always be story-telling.
That’s what we’ve been doing as humans since we sat around fire.
Stories is what makes us AI-proofed writers.
#10. Every good story follows ABDCE:
Action, background, development, climax, and ending.
