04 Jul 2026 #coding
Yesterday, it happened again.
I had an error message that made me scratch my head.
For a moment, I thought, “God, why am I doing this? I should start a garden or something.”
I copy-pasted the error message into Google.
StackOverflow didn’t help that much.
I was tempted to go to Copilot.
But I held my horses.
A few moments later, “Oooohh, here it is!”
A one-line code change fixed it.
Stupid Entity Framework Core!
I was in a rush a few days before and I missed a small detail:
I used a collection to map a one-to-one relationship.
Simple! I know. Only integration tests caught it.
For a moment, an error message made me want to quit.
A second later, I was back in the game.
Yet again. For the nth time.
I guess AI doesn’t give you that feeling—or does it?
Whether you code the old way or with AI, check out Street-Smart Coding—It covers debugging, testing, and many 28 more lessons to help you code like a pro.
03 Jul 2026 #mondaylinks
Hey there.
Before this week’s links, a quick update:
After a couple of rounds of editing, I recruited a couple of friends as beta readers for Street-Smart Coding Manifesto. It’s not the first time someone’s read these ideas, but I like honest feedback before launching—to quiet the inner critic.
As usual, here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week:
#1. Keeping a blog showed me a corner of the web outside the big platforms. But I didn’t know about the smolweb and its protocols (5min), like gopher and finger.
#2. We’re not coders anymore, but couriers (3min). Now our real job is delivery.
#3. I used to argue passionately about languages, principles, and best practices. But over time, just like this coder, I stopped arguing with people (8min).
#4. Here’s an open letter (2min) from a teacher to his students, reflecting on how to navigate the current tech landscape.
And in case you missed it, I wrote on my blog about syntax not being the edge anymore (2min) and about AI making you fast, but forgettable (2min).
(Bzzz…Radio voice) This email was brought to you by… Street-Smart Coding Manifesto. My case against syntax obsession to stand out. Because real impact comes from skills outside your IDE.
Preorder for just $1 and become a coder who stands out beyond syntax. If you’d like to support the work, contribute $5 or more, and I’ll thank you in the Acknowledgments.
See you next time,
Cesar
02 Jul 2026 #writing #bookwriting
Dr. Seuss wrote Green Eggs and Ham using only 50 words.
Amazon limits team size to what two pizzas can feed.
Virgil Abloh challenged himself to tweak only 3% of an existing design.
Inspired by these examples and by this David Epstein’s YouTube video, here’s my 10-idea list of writing constraints—pair them with these fun blog post challenges:
- Write a book first draft in one month
- Share only 10 main ideas, one idea per chapter, in a book
- Spend no more than one hour writing and editing a post
- Write a book backwards: start with a cover, sales page, and one-liner
- Reuse the same material more than once
- Finish a book in half the time it took your last one
- Write a book only using your notes
- Challenge yourself with an impossible deadline, like a book in a weekend
- Finish your daily writing before lunch
- Limit your book to under 50 or 100 pages, or maybe just one page
Constraints make you more creative—and more productive. Without them, you’ll keep tweaking and perfecting forever.
01 Jul 2026 #wellness #selfgrowth
From Derek Sivers’ Useful But Not True, you can always choose your next thought or reaction.
But yesterday, I failed to choose my next reaction after a frustrating purchase over the phone.
Then I hit a roadblock with a coding task.
I felt how my energy was depleted.
To change my mood, I switched to writing, something I enjoy.
Hoping to find something to steal, I opened my RSS reader and checked my favorite blog aggregators.
But scrolling only made things worse.
It ended up draining the remaining energy.
Screens don’t energize me.
Until it was time for my daily walk.
Fresh air, the outdoors, and oxygenated blood always lift a bad mood, just like finding a health package in a video game.
A walk can fix almost anything, by giving you fresh eyes to approach it.
30 Jun 2026 #misc
My sister showed me her phone with some hotel Instagram accounts.
“They all look the same. I wonder if it’s AI,” she told me.
She was visiting profiles of two small hotels in our city.
Same colors. Same layout.
No way to tell one from the other.
The day before, a friend showed us a thank-you note from a community campaign.
It looked just like the hotels’ Instagram posts.
It’s not just Instagram or our friend’s picture.
Open LinkedIn and you’ll see the same infographic all over the feed.
Same colors. Same layout. Same cartoon style.
Open Amazon and you’ll see the same books.
“Become rich with ChatGPT” or the 100,000 ways replicas.
AI makes you faster.
But it will make you look and sound the same.
In today’s fast-moving… or “In the world of…“
That’s why I don’t use AI for my writing.
What’s the point of AI if it makes you forgettable?
What’s the point of generating content if people scroll past it?
“Don’t use AI,” I told my sister, speaking about growing her small business online.
If AI can do it in minutes, it’s not special. It’s forgettable.
That mantra works for coding and all other skills.
If you’re into coding or self growth, visit my books page. Books that respect your time and don’t sound the same. #madebyahuman.