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.

Kangaroos And The Road Sign (A 100-Word Fiction Story Inspired By a Photo)

09 May 2026 #misc

Here’s May photo prompt from 100 word story and my story.

When some friends came over and you had some beers…

Every five minutes I asked, “Dad, when are we going to see kangaroos?”

I was 5 or 6. I had read every kangaroo book in the library.

My dad had rented a car. I didn’t care about Sydney and the Opera House. I only wanted to see kangaroos.

I don’t remember where we were, but we heard, puff!…and the car stopped. OMG! Smoke everywhere, hot as hell. “And the kangaroos?” I started to cry.

My dad crossed the road and took this picture. That was the only kangaroo I saw in Australia.

I’ll never rent a car. Ever.

Friday Links: Coding sucks, inverse laws of robotics, and Chrome surprises

08 May 2026 #mondaylinks

Hey there.

Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week:

#1. Coding sucks (9min) It’s not like building a house, but like jumping into a ship, nobody knows where it goes…And no, AI didn’t take our jobs. It was something else.

#2. Isaac Asimov created three laws for robots to interact with humans. If you’ve watched I Robot, you already know them. And here are three inverse laws for humans to interact with AI (9min).

#3. Did you know that Chrome installs a 4GB AI model (30min) without asking you?…And if you delete it, it installs it again. Surprise!

#4. I already knew about robots.txt, but there’s a whole folder to host those files (2min).

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And in case you missed it, I wrote on my blog about why Star Wars is the best saga (3min) and 7 interesting but random ideas I found (2min).

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(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.

May the Force be with you,

Cesar

10 Lessons I Wish I Knew When I Was 25

07 May 2026 #selfgrowth

#1. Buy a domain and choose a professional handle. And no, a hacker-like handle isn’t cool.

#2. Start that blog. Seriously! Write anywhere. You’re going to like it.

#3. Open a brokerage account and start investing. Go with a broad market index fund and don’t worry about ups and downs.

#4. Take care of your body. Go to bed early. Exercise. Eat the right food, in the right amount.

#5. Don’t try to fit in. If you feel alone, there’s nothing wrong with you. Build a place where you fit in.

#6. Don’t force people into your life. That applies to friends and relationships.

#7. Ask for help. Figuring out things on your own is satisfying. But with help, you’ll get results faster.

#8. You can’t fix the world or people around you. And that’s OK. Often, they don’t want to be saved.

#9. Be present for your family. And being around and providing for them isn’t enough.

#10. If something feels off about work and life, you’re most likely right. Come up with your plan or work on somebody else’s plan—you’re not going to like it.

If any of my lessons resonated, check out these 10 ideas that changed my life and could change yours.

A Simpler Way To Start The Zettelkasten Method

06 May 2026 #books

Search for “Zettelkasten” and you’ll drown in endless breakdowns of note types and apps.

But the Zettelkasten method isn’t complicated. How to Make Notes and Write by Dan Allosso shows a simple way to adopt it.

Here are five lessons I’ve learned from reading it:

#1. Avoid the mere-exposure effect.

Seeing a concept frequently doesn’t mean you understand it. You truly understand something when you write about it. Writing makes you think.

#2. Read with a project in mind.

Don’t extract everything from a book in one pass. Record what’s useful for your current project. You can always reread.

#3. Focus on the process, not the tools.

“What’s the best plugin for Obsidian?” “When should I use this note type?” Arrggg!

Forget about tweaking fancy tools. Niklas Luhmann, the Zettelkasten godfather, didn’t even have a computer. He only used pen and paper—and a typewriter.

The process is rather simple:

1. Highlight or underline.
2. Record data as you find it.
3. Interpret and make it relevant for your projects.

#4. Use only two types of notes.

Use Source notes to record data. Quotations, definitions, ideas, concepts. Source notes collect evidence of what you find.

Use Point notes to write conclusions. Anything you want to turn into knowledge counts as a note.

Point reminds you to write a single observation in a note.

How to Take Smart Notes calls them literature and permanent notes. But they’re the same thing.

#5. Originality is also finding new connections.

Without connections, notes are just a collection of trivia. That’s why my first Zettelkasten attempt didn’t work.

Stop Wasting Your Readers' Time

05 May 2026 #writing

Telling readers you don’t want to waste their time is already wasting it.

Last week in a grocery line, I picked up a self-help book from the nearby shelves. In the introduction, the author said he liked getting straight to the point without wasting time.

Then today I started a note-taking book. After listing two well-known note takers, the author gave the same disclaimer. Arrggg!

What if, instead of opening your book or post with a disclaimer, you went directly to the point? That’s how you don’t waste people’s time.

That’s the main lesson from Smart Brevity and that’s the whole point behind mini books.