19 Oct 2025 #writing
I wrote my first blog post in 2018. Well, it was more of a word vomit pretending to be a coding tutorial.
I’ve been writing a daily post since November 1st, 2024. And in the last year, I’ve written over 300 LinkedIn posts.
By pure accident or luck, I made my first $1 online thanks to my writing.
After all these years, I’ve adopted the following 5 guiding principles to keep writing:
#1. If it helps one person, hit post.
You don’t need to write to the masses. Just to one person. And that one person could be your past self.
#2. Give something and give it fast.
In 17ms, we decide if we keep reading or move on. Credits to Small Brevity.
Online writing (emails, social media posts, or blog posts) isn’t fiction. People expect a long detailed description of scenery and dialog in a novel. Even in fiction, if your story isn’t moving fast enough, readers will put your book aside.
Get to the point! Nail your headlines and work on your opening lines. Cut the long intros.
#3. Write as if nobody’s reading. Keep writing because you never know who is.
Writing feels lonely when you start.
The cure? Write for your younger self. Write what you wish you had known 2 years ago.
#4. Don’t wait to become an expert. Write to become one.
If you wait to become an expert, you’ll never write while putting in the 10,000 hours.
Instead, write to learn. Document your journey. Teach as you go.
#5. Intention gets you started. A system keeps you showing up.
Writing can feel easy, especially with AI. Consistency is the real challenge.
Find ways to capture ideas and turn them into posts.
In the end, intention starts the journey. But attitude, systems, and habits keep it going.
18 Oct 2025 #misc
Here are 8 things I believe you should never feel bad about, no matter what:
#1. Saying no. To negativity, toxic relationships, bad jobs… To anything your gut instinct doesn’t like.
#2. Choosing an unproven path. There’s a default plan set for you if you don’t choose yours.
Go to college, get a job, work hard, keep your head down, and retire. That worked for our parents. Not anymore.
It’s okay to start a small business, create content, or freelance instead of following the 9-5 path.
#3. Putting yourself first. If you don’t take care of yourself, nobody will. And life is often like airplane safety measures: put your oxygen mask on first, before helping others.
#4. Buying books. From I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, I learned to cut what we hate and spend on what we love. If that means buying books, so be it.
#5. Avoid spending on luxury items. Who needs the expensive watch, designer clothes, or fancy wallet? Often, people go into debt to pay for those items. And if it doesn’t put money into your pockets, it’s a liability. (Credits to Poor Dad Rich Dad.) And it’s okay to cut it.
#6. Traveling. Apart from visiting new places, traveling teaches you new languages and to expand your horizons. The world isn’t like your small town. People don’t think like you. And that’s okay.
#7. Being single. I don’t remember where I heard it, but most people start relationships simply because they feel alone. For that, it’s better to find a hobby or new friends than to start a relationship that might hurt someone.
#8. Promoting your own work. Sometimes we debate sports, politics, or why Apple phones beat Samsung phones, but hesitate to promote our own work. Like it or not, we’re selling all the time. And if we don’t sell something, we’ll end up selling our time. And we’re not going to like it.
17 Oct 2025 #mondaylinks
Hey! Hope your week’s been good.
A quick update on my book, Street-Smart Coding:
I’m done addressing feedback from my beta readers. Turns out I had forgotten about a references section. Arrggg!
I’ve reread my draft countless times, still afraid of typos. My next step? Design the interior of my book. Quick update over.
Now, the 4 links as usual:
#1. A corporate job is a game of politics. (Just try to make a change in your company.) Here’s a guide on how to play and influence the tech company politics (8min).
#2. Like any new coder, junior-me spent hours tweaking my IDE with themes and extensions. Eventually, I settled down to the Solarized theme. And more recently, while looking for a simple theme for live coding and code samples on my books, I found Alabaster and the rationale behind it (10min). When everything is highlighted, nothing really stands out.
#3. Plastic bags killed basket-making. Is coding next? Is coding becoming a dying craft? (3min) No clear answer, just food for thought. For sure, coding is evolving. We’re not punching cards anymore. Maybe, in the future we won’t be typing symbols like we do now.
#4. Often great coders get promoted to management, to stop coding eventually. But what if a promotion meant going deeper instead of moving up and out? (6min).
And in case you missed it, I wrote on my blog about the one rule I use to code with AI (to avoid losing my skills) (2min) and the best bad coding example I’m using in my book (2min). Coming up with a good bad example is surprisingly hard, but I think I nailed one.
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by…
Preorder Street-Smart Coding here (pay what you want just for these days) and read 5 of the 30 strategies just to start. If you’ve ever typed “how to get better at coding” on Google, YouTube, and more recently on ChatGPT, this is for you.
See you next time,
Cesar
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16 Oct 2025 #misc
Feel free to build these two ideas. I’m not afraid to share them. I’m an idea machine. Steal them.
#1. A browser extension to avoid hitting “Post” or “Publish.” Not to stop me writing, just to avoid clicking Post instead of Schedule. Handy for Medium or LinkedIn or any other content platform.
It’s the second or third time I’ve sent an email meant for the next day. I clicked on Post instead of Schedule. Arrggg! Nothing wrong happened. I just don’t want to appear in people’s inboxes like a desperate creator, begging for money.
#2. A simple online app (or page) with a target count of bullet items. Recently, I found the 100 thoughts challenge (write 100 thoughts in less than 20 minutes). Credits to Iban Van der Zeyp on Medium.
To finish that challenge, I thought of The Most Dangerous Writing App. You set a word count or time limit and if you stop typing before you hit that target, it erases everything. Gone! Forever. What about something similar with a target bullet point count? And each double Enter adds a new bullet point to the list.
Maybe those two are good weekend coding challenges to play with AI. If you build one, I’d love to hear about it.
15 Oct 2025 #misc
I haven’t stumbled upon any client or company forcing me to use AI.
That’s not a reality for everybody in the industry. Today I found this Reddit post from a coder who has lost interest after being forced to use AI, even he was tracked:
“Within the span of maybe 2 months my corporate job went from “I’ll be here for life” to “Time to switch careers?” Some exec somewhere in the company decided everyone needs to be talking to AI, and they track how often you’re talking with it. I ended up on a naughty list for the first time in my career, despite never having performance issues. I explain to my manager and his response is to just ask it meaningless questions.”
That post rang a bell! It reminded me of a conversation I had recently.
The real driver isn’t productivity
These days, I caught-up with some of my ex-coworkers, and one story stood up.
After the usual chit-chat, one of them shared that his company was encouraging them to use AI, not so strong like the guy from Reddit. Maybe productivity was the official reason.
But the real reason? Turns out, one of the company founders was also investing in an AI startup. And guess which AI tool they were encouraging people to use.
Just like I found the other day, if you think of AI as just another subscription company pushed for profit, all the hype starts to make more sense.
The real driver isn’t productivity, but financial interest.
It’s easy to get caught up in the AI hype and forget coding is more than shipping crappy lines of code fast.
But coding is also about clear communication, thoughtful problem-solving, and knowing when to say no. None of that shows up in AI usage metrics.
And that’s why wrote, Street-Smart Coding: 30 Ways to Get Better at Coding, to share the skills I wish I’d learned earlier, the ones that help you become a confident, hype-proof coder.
Get your copy of Street-Smart Coding here