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.
Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week:
#1.LibreOffice announced “no-ai” (2min) as a core feature and their downloads doubled. Not everyone wants AI and their hands on everything. I’m announcing “no-AI” on my posts, newsletters, books…just to see if visits and sales doubled. LOL.
#2. What do you have in your CV? Languages, tools, job experience? What about listing any of these 4 rare skills (6min)? Which one do you have? I think I’m a polyglot.
#3. AI won’t ever replace coders if you consider programming as an art (5min). Do you think programming is art?
#4. When everybody is doomscrolling and defaulting to AI, it’s time for de-brainrot vacations (5min).
(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.
#4. To remember what you read, ask “What am I trying to achieve?”
#5.Tsundoku is the Japanese word for a pile of unread books.
#6. In a book date, you take your date to a bookstore, discuss about the books you both have read, then each one buys a book the other person will like.
I spent three days on medication before I could leave the bathroom.
Everything I ate sent me to the toilet. I even had to call a doctor to get a prescription over the phone, just to be able to get out of the house for an appropriate doctor’s appointment. It was the peak of my burnout, in 2023.
It took me days before I could eat without fear. My job was such a pain that I wanted to finish my daily tasks as soon as I could, and I skipped meals and had irregular eating schedules. Bad idea!
Getting stomach sick was a loud siren, but there was a more subtle sign I didn’t notice.
For weeks, I didn’t want to get out of bed. I thought there was no point! Every day felt and looked the same. Another pointless meeting. Another boring task. Another mark on the wall. I waited until the last minute to rush from my bed to my meetings. Thank goodness they were over Teams, and nobody noticed I didn’t shower or my breath.
That apathy and disengagement started Sunday evenings. Just imagining what the next Monday would look like already gave me a funny feeling in my chest and stomach. It wasn’t love butterflies.
I tried taking vacations and sick days. But once I was back, my energy got depleted after a few days. Back to square one, trapped on my bed again.
Some days you’re just tired and don’t want to get up. But if that’s multiple days in a row, don’t wait to fall sick. That’s the first sign to look for.
For a long time, I believed my career was the most important part of my life. I chased titles like Software Architect or Staff Engineer at my last full-time job. But I was at the wrong place, at the wrong time.
After a couple of years, the honeymoon was over. Work felt like a burden, and I thought a new role would spice things up.
When I discussed the chances of a promotion with my boss’s boss, I was told “You could build any role you want.” But all my ideas were rejected with a “Someone is already doing that.” That subtle rejection frustrated me even more. Months later, I was laid off.
I let my work frustrations spread to the rest of my life. I stopped exercising, writing, and eating regularly. I burned out so badly I couldn’t get out of bed.
But burnout and a layoff made me rethink everything. My job and a title aren’t the most important parts of my life. I’ve placed strong boundaries around work and leisure. I code part-time, and only code during working hours. At lunch, I shut down everything work-related and return the next day. Zero emails or notifications. I joke by saying I’m not a passionate coder anymore.
After two days without sleep, I almost collapsed. I had forced myself to make money online and quit my day job. For that, I started on a social media platform and challenged myself to grow it by leaving 1 post, 10 likes, and 5 comments every day.
Within days, I pressured myself to scroll faster and longer, to leave more likes and more comments. All the contradictory advice only made things worse. “Find a niche,” “Don’t find a niche,” “Sell digital products,” “Start a community,” “Offer coaching calls…” Arrgggg!
But no matter the platform or your goals, doomscrolling is still draining.
Every session with a feed (or dumbscrolling, as I prefer to call it now) made my brain race and my anxiety rise. Until I couldn’t sleep because my brain refused to slow down. And probably for the first time, I had a panic attack after waking up.
To reset my nervous system, I had to literally stop and do nothing. I didn’t open any platform with a “For you” feed or with a number next to my name for a week. In the meantime, I had to go back to walking in nature, writing just for fun again, and living away from screens. I had to go back to my daily healthy rituals.
Normalize that if it drains you, it’s OK to cut it out. Because it will cost you days to reset your nervous system and go back to your calm and steady life.
