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.
Maybe the future is AI specs via brain implants. Who knows!
What you miss when coding with AI
The post made an excellent distinction between old coding vs AI-assisted coding.
“when writing code ‘by hand’ I was actually doing two things: writing what I wanted and learning the codebase…if I didn’t know what I wanted exactly, coding agents would be happy to make many assumptions for me. This almost always meant that I didn’t learn as much, and that I wouldn’t have a good grasp of the codebase.”
Coding isn’t just typing.
It’s decoding business rules or problem constraints to then encode them into a programming language, while
Mastering its syntax and rules,
Making the new coding artifacts interact with existing ones,
Following the structure and conventions of the codebase,
In the meantime, every AI-generated line of code we don’t understand isn’t just technical debt. It’s cognitive debt.
AI is like a powerful calculator: only useful if you know the math. To help you level up your coding skills—AI-assisted coding or old school—check out Street-Smart Coding. The roadmap I wish I had starting out.
Today I found a short version of Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel acceptance speech. His words about why he writes inspired me to write my own reply. Here’s why I write.
I know because I took notes.
I have in my digital slip-box excerpts and reactions.
I only remembered the Monk Mode: isolation for a period to focus on a project.
Recently, my mission to reduce my phone time brought the book back to my attention.
That’s when I pulled out my notes and found all the quotes and excerpts.
This time, reading it would have more meaning.
It’s no longer about hitting a book count.
I have a running project.
A concrete goal.
The book hasn’t change.
But I have.
That makes the reading different.
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… Street-Smart Coding, 30 lessons to help you code like a pro. From Googling to clear communication, it shares the lessons to help you stand out in the age of AI.
In early 2023, a coworker tried that new thing called ChatGPT.
He shared his excitement.
I wasn’t that impressed.
Months later, after all the buzz, I searched that Chat thing.
Every time I tried, I couldn’t access it.
It was a public beta or something.
Too many people.
Then, I learned from Brent Ozar to keep a browser tab with ChatGPT open as a junior assistant.
Mmm, there’s something there…
In early 2024, Devin was released.
“The sky is falling” all over the headlines.
I didn’t buy it.
OMG! This is dangerous!
Early 2025, I decided to try AI with a fresh mind.
After using Copilot for weeks, “OMG! This thing is dangerous.”
One day I realized I couldn’t finish a simple task alone.
The tool worked, but I was becoming so dependent.
An AI detox season followed.
No more AI until you eat your vegetables and do your homework.
Then I made somerules to use AI without losing my skills.
Like any other tool, AI is a game changer with the right skills.
Otherwise, it’s like a fancy calculator in a math exam you didn’t study for.
