04 May 2026 #misc
When facing a decision or hard choice:
If it doesn’t make say “Hell yes,” say no.
Credits to Derek Sivers.
In past weeks, a journalist found my rules for AI coding.
He invited for an interview to write a story about it.
A story featuring me in a tech news site? “Hell yes.”
After the interview, I had to send a photo of my ID, a professional headshot, and about a dozen of casual photos…plus some follow up via email.
Photo of my ID? Casual photos?
Were they training an AI or something?
It wasn’t a “hell yes” anymore.
A “hell yes” could consume more time than expected.
Or it couldn’t be a real “hell yes” after all.
Choose what to focus on and say no.
Remember: a “hell yes” can always become a no.
02 May 2026 #misc
Recently, I’ve started to list interesting ideas I found over the week—to practice my 10-idea list habit. Here are 7 from the last week.
#1. The Matthew effect.
Inspired by a verse from the gospel of Matthew, recognition goes to already-recognized people.
Visit social media and you’ll see it.
#2. The one sentencing to death wields the sword.
Or something like that.
This comes from Game of Thrones.
Decision makers should stay close to their decisions.
#3. Don’t treat reading as background noise.
Know whether you’re reading for pleasure and insight.
When reading for insight, make it active.
Otherwise, you won’t remember anything.
#4. Solve the problem with what’s in your room.
Or in your head or in your notes.
#5. Three interesting questions from Tim Ferriss’s Tools of Titans:
- What if you only solve a problem by removing something?
- What if you only had two hours to create?
- What’s the least crowded place to go?
#6. When writing anything emotional, write by hand.
For everything else, type.
#7. Start writing by the end.
What’s the one thing you want readers to take away?
Writing a 10-idea list changed my life. Try it! It could change yours too.
01 May 2026 #mondaylinks
Hey there.
Here are 4 links I thought were worth sharing this week:
#1. GitHub made it to the headlines with outages and Copilot pricing. Mitchell Hashimoto, creator of Vagrant and Ghostty, is already leaving GitHub (4min). He’s not the only one. But believe it or not, there was still open source before GitHub (13min).
#2. I never used it, but a guy is trying to revive Friendster (3min), the first social media network.
#3. The defense industry already faced cheaper alternatives, efficiencies and consolidation, and a broken talent pipeline. Now it’s time for the tech industry (15min).
#4. Want some time off from social media? What about using the internet like it’s 1999 (11min)? Not with a desperately slow connection, but without feeds.
In case you missed it, last week I wrote about a newspaper-style feed for blog aggregators (2min) and Bubbles (2min) did it. Also, I documented 7 interesting ideas I found recently (2min).
(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.
See you next Friday with more links.
Cesar
30 Apr 2026 #coding #career
80% of the time, coding is a performance. The other 20% is doing real coding.
Performance means Scrum ceremonies, meetings, and JIRA:
- A meeting to present tickets for the next two weeks
- A meeting to answer questions from the previous meeting
- A meeting to watch someone enter a number in a text box. Read: poker planning and story points
- Meetings to watch someone move a ticket between JIRA lanes. Read: daily meetings
- A meeting about all the other meetings. Read: retrospective
And when things go sideways, the performance intensifies with more frequent meetings. Sometimes a team member’s only job is running ceremonies and writing reports.
That kills the fun of coding and can make you hate it.
This happens everywhere. Sylwia Laskowska asked in a dev.to post if that’s something that only happens at her place. Nope! Even in the best families, as we say in our hometown.
Showing progress matters more than real work. Coding is often just a side quest. A hard truth nobody tells us about.
To succeed as a coder, you need to master the ceremonies as much as the code. That’s why Street-Smart Coding covers communication and collaboration. Because coding is more than typing symbols.
29 Apr 2026 #coding #career
This is my submission for the IndieWeb Carnival May 2026.
Dear coding,
Our story didn’t start with love at first sight. You weren’t my first option. Sorry! But when we started to hang out, everything clicked. There was chemistry!
First, it was a textbook on C/C++ in college. Then, it was a recipe catalog in PHP late at night. Then, it was Java. Then, our first adventure in the real world with C#. Then, building, fixing, growing—what others would call “passion.”
I enjoyed the time we spent together. It was the challenge, the victory dances, the aha moments at the most unexpected times…It was funny, rewarding, almost magical.
But something felt off. The passion faded, and then one day, everything changed.
I don’t blame you. It was the corporate world, Scrum and its ceremonies, unrealistic deadlines, office politics…They all ruined our thing. I stopped waking up eager for you. I didn’t want to talk or read about you. I got sick. I got burned out. I got tired of us.
Then, to make things worse, a layoff set us apart.
It was a hard time. We stopped seeing each other. Nobody hired me to be with you again. And I stopped looking.
It was a long time away. Honestly, I didn’t miss you. I thought we would never cross paths again. After months of applications, hope arrived in an unexpected email. Someone wanted us back together. But things can’t be the same after a breakup. We now need boundaries and space.
Coding, I sometimes hate you. I sometimes dream about a life without you. But you rewired my brain, making me see the world with different eyes, and that’s why I’ll always love you.