TIL: How to Navigate to the Root Folder of a Git Repo

Recently I found myself cding to find the folder with a .sln file. You know to run dotnet commands.

Being a lazy coder, I thought of a better solution with a Bash script. But it turned out to be way easier with a Git command,

$ cd `git rev-parse --show-toplevel`

That would take you to the root folder of a git repo. And since my solution file is at the root, bingo! Kudos to this SO answer.

And the next lazy step was to create an alias,

alias groot='cd "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)"'

Et voilà!

Why I Work from Home (It's Not the Pajamas)

Today life threw me a curve ball and forced me out of my home office.

It was rush hour and I was still across town. Errands took me so long that I didn’t make it home before 5:00PM.

I waited for 15 minutes next to ~100 people at a bus stop. After watching the time, I asked the lady in front of me, “Is it like this every day or just today?” “Yes! Every day! It’s rush hour,” she said.

I got so desperate that I walked for 10 minutes to the closest bus terminal. Every stop had at least a dozen people waiting for the same bus. At the bus terminal, I waited for ~5 minutes for the right bus.

Forty minutes later, I reached the closest station to home. It felt like a trip to the next city. Then another 5 minutes in line charging my card for tomorrow. And finally, another 10 minutes walking home.

At home, I’d have been getting ready to work out or simply reading a book. And I still don’t get why people ask me if I like to work from home.

Now Is the Best Time to Learn Programming (It's Not Too Late)

Today I found this question on dev.to (with a tone of frustration in it):

I’m trying to start learning webdev but I don’t know if it’s too late.

Like investing, planting trees, and pretty much anything else in life, the best time to start was five years ago. But the next best time? Now.

Decades ago, people learned from reference manuals and magazines. Paid for compilers. And suffered with slow and expensive internet connections. You could only access a computer in universities. Having one at home was a complete luxury.

Fast forward to today, your phone has more power than the computer that put a man on the Moon.

Now, anyone can start learning to code by asking ChatGPT for a 3-month learning guide and following YouTube tutorials. All for free.

If you’re asking the same question, don’t be discouraged by AI.

Blame all the misleading headlines. “More than X% of new code at $BigCorp is generated by AI.” More often than not, they’re a marketing strategy from AI companies.

AI is making coding faster and cheaper. Sure.

But most of the real work still happens through collaborating in meetings and discussions, not at the keyboard. AI isn’t replacing coders (for real) anytime soon because coding is about thinking and problem-solving. Typing is just the surface.

And that’s why I wrote Street-Smart Coding: 30 Ways to Get Better at Coding, a practical guide to the skills that make you a confident, thoughtful coder. It’s the roadmap I wish I had when I was starting out.

Get your copy of Street-Smart Coding here and future-proof your skills.

Re: Why LinkedIn Rewards Mediocrity

Elliot Smith nailed it in his post Why LinkedIn Rewards Mediocrity.

It’s hard to disagree with that headline and his main idea. Yes, LinkedIn is a weird place. We do crazy things for a moment of fame or to impress future employers.

I’ve been writing consistently on LinkedIn since 2024, and here are my reactions:

It’s built for virality

Honestly, the best approach is to remember that LinkedIn is a website owned by Microsoft, trying to make money for Microsoft, based on time spent on the site.

Absolutely! Like any other social platform, they want us trapped.

If you have a LinkedIn account, you’ve already received the useless “someone on LinkedIn viewed your profile” email and plenty of others. The more time we spend there, the more ads they show and the more money they make. Our attention is the product they sell.

The feed, the algorithm, and the platform itself are created for virality, not depth. And truth be told, nobody goes to social media for depth. When was the last time you went there for that? We go there to scroll until it’s time to clock out. We might learn something dumb scrolling sometimes.

Social media might offer ideas, but only in 280 characters or a flashy image. Funny enough, my most viewed posts have been listicles and short controversial posts. They crush it on social media. But for depth, we have newsletters and books.

It has good content

Lots of people who write good content don’t live on LinkedIn, they might repurpose things for the platform but they exist elsewhere.

That’s true.

I use social media to test ideas and promote my coding newsletter and blog. No shame in being “salesy.” That’s what most creators do. After all, social media is built for dopamine hits, not depth.

It’s easy to support good content

If you’re more of a consumer than a producer and you want to help make things better the best thing you can do is reward the real stuff. Find those people who aren’t playing the game and promote that instead.

100% agree. If you comment that something is clickbait, you’ll only boost it. More comments = larger audience. Simply ignore that type of content. Engage with content worth spreading. That’s how we can fix the feed.

We've Lost the Joy of Seeing Tech for the First Time

The other day, I shared my story of how I met my first computer on dev.to. It resonated with at least a dozen people. From the 1 KB RAM computer story to the grassy hill wallpaper of Windows XP.

All comments had something in common: Seeing a computer for the first time was like a magical moment. For many, changing letters on a screen felt magical 10 or 20 years ago.

Most of us ended up choosing programming because of the mystery and magic of seeing computers for the first time.

Maybe my first encounter with a computer wasn’t that magical. I didn’t know then I’d work with with computers. But I narrowed down all my options until a computer-related one was left. I owe it to my STEM classes and having a computer at home, a luxury for universities and big firms back then.

These days, computers are everyday tools we barely notice. That magic has faded away.