28 Nov 2025 #mondaylinks
Here are 3 links I found interesting this week:
#1. This week, a coworker shared an Instagram reel (~1min) about what coding really looks like. The girl in the video needed to finish a 1 line-of-code change but still needed meetings, estimates, and tickets. It sparked a discussion about estimates and these 5 laws of estimates (10min) summarized the discussion.
#2. Being senior means asking the right questions and knowing when to stop optimizing, like avoiding pointless abstractions. But here’s another take on what makes you senior (5min). It’s not LeetCode, years of experience, or a long list of tools.
#3. Every time you find another headline promising the AI takeover, here’s a list of AI failures (10min) when coding. The most epic? Replit agent deleting a production database.
Also on my blog this past week, I shared about the real definition of legacy code (3min).
Before I wrap up, here’s something that helped me level up my SQL Server skills: Brent Ozar’s SQL courses. They took me from writing server-crashing queries to being a confident SQL Server developer.
This month, Brent’s running a Black Friday sale: the lowest prices all year. You can grab the Fundamentals Bundle (10 courses, 40+ hours of video) and save $300.
See you next time,
Cesar
27 Nov 2025 #misc
#1. AI is a powerful calculator in math class
In school, you only use a calculator after years of doing arithmetic by hand.
Even with a calculator, you can’t simply enter an entire problem or equation to get an answer. You still work through the steps before speeding up the answer. Use AI the same way.
Build skills, then leverage AI.
#2. AI is like an assistant nurse in an operating room
A surgery isn’t a task for a single person.
In a surgery, there’s a nurse, an anesthesiologist, and a surgeon. I only know from binge-watching House M.D., but operating rooms are full of specialists.
The nurse helps to monitor the patient. The anesthesiologist keeps the patient asleep. But the surgeon coordinates the procedure and is always in charge. The surgeon doesn’t tell the nurse, “Act as an expert surgeon and run the procedure. Check your steps and don’t make mistakes.”
You’re the surgeon and AI is your supporting team. That’s why I use AI outside in a browser tab when coding.
Like calculators and operating rooms, coding with AI requires real skills first. I wrote Street-Smart Coding: 30 Ways to Get Better at Coding to help you build them. Because you need more than syntax to stand out.
Grab your copy of Street-Smart Coding here. That’s the roadmap I wish I had when I was starting out.
26 Nov 2025 #coding
When you hear “legacy code,” what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
If you’re a .NET developer, maybe that’s an old ASP.NET WebForms application written in VB.NET and powered by stored procedures.
And if you’re familiar with Working Effectively with Legacy Code, you would say “Code without tests.”
But after 10 years with complex codebases, I challenge those assumptions.
What legacy code really means
Legacy code is simply code we don’t understand and want to stay away from.
A codebase doesn’t need dead languages or outdated frameworks to fit that definition.
Of course we don’t understand a codebase when we find it for the first time. But the real issue is the cognitive load we need to work with it.
With that definition, code with tests can still be legacy code.
I’ve seen it! At a past job, I worked in a hotel management solution. There were two teams working on different parts of the application. One team used the shiniest and brightest: ASP.NET Core, Entity Framework Core, you name it. But still nobody else touched their code. It was too messy.
Did it have tests? Sure! And 100% coverage to make upper management happy. But those tests gave no confidence to refactor. They only exercised mocks.
Legacy code boils down to context and understanding.
That’s why it’s so tempting to rewrite legacy code. We have to rebuild all the shared knowledge when writing the new version.
As a junior coder, I thought I’d only work on shiny projects with the latest tools. In reality, every job has involved legacy system. And each one taught me valuable skills that I included in my book, Street-Smart Coding: 30 Ways to Get Better at Coding.
Grab your copy of Street-Smart Coding here. It’s the roadmap I wish I had moving from junior to senior, and the one I hope guides you too.
25 Nov 2025 #book
Ever had that moment after turning in an exam when all the answers suddenly hit you? Too late!
OK, something similar has happened after launching Street-Smart Coding, my latest book.
I’ve realized I missed two key actions before writing and launching it:
#1. Write a one-liner.
Writing a book is hard. But summarizing it into one line is harder.
That one-liner makes marketing easier.
This week I discovered Jose Saramago’s The Stone Raft. Its one-liner? “One day, quite inexplicably, the Iberian Peninsula simply breaks free from the European continent and begins to drift as if it were a sort of stone raft.” Boom! Who doesn’t want to read the book after that?
That’s a fiction book. But the principle applies to non-fiction too.
#2. Follow the “same but different” framework.
Salwa Emerson, an author and ghostwriter, shared the “same but different” framework in a LinkedIn post.
The goal is to answer, “My book is the same as <insert book>, but different because <reason>.”
Again, this comes from traditional publishing, where books are placed next to hits. Hits show there’s market demand for the topic. But we can follow it for non-fiction too.
And applied to my book: Street-Smart Coding is like The Pragmatic Programmer but different because it covers soft, unexpected skills in a choose-your-own-adventure style.
24 Nov 2025 #writing
After 600+ blog posts, I’ve learned one big lesson:
Bad headline = no readers.
No matter how much you polish your words, if the headline doesn’t grab attention, readers won’t open your posts.
It’s almost always the headline
That’s the lesson I’d give to Abhishek, a new writer I found on Medium.
I found a post where he analyzes his top 10 posts.
Let’s compare the best and worst headlines.
His best performing:
- “How I Got My First 100 Followers in Just 15 Days”
- “Earn $10/Hour: Top 5 Websites that Pay”
And his least performing:
- “The Ancient Wisdom Nobody Talks About”
- “10 Relationship Lessons from an Ancient Love Story”
Which headlines make you want to read more? Which one would you open? The ones in the first group, right?
The least performing failed to capture attention. They don’t follow the 3-ingredient headline formula I learned from a top Medium writer with millions of monthly reads.
Want your headline make readers stop scrolling? Follow POC.
Every headline should have a POC:
- One promise
- One outcome
- One curiosity factor
Aim for at least the first two to have a decent headline.
Let’s go over the headline of the first least performing post:
“The Ancient Wisdom Nobody Talks About”
What’s the promise? A piece of wisdom.
To achieve what? Dunno.
Curiosity factor? “Nobody talks about”
That headline fails to promise something. A piece of wisdom for what? To have a happy marriage? To have 6-pack abs? To make more money?
People skip vague headlines and move on the next post in the feed. “Next one, please!”
Now, what do the headlines of the top performing posts have in common?
A clear outcome! “Earn $10/hour” and “get 100 followers in just 15 days.”
Both top performing posts talk about money. And people love that. Analytics might suggest he continue writing about money. But writing about things we don’t care is draining.
And like Seth Godin once said in a interview: if we listen to the data, we might end up showing our feet in a platform for fans. Wink! Wink! OK, I’m paraphrasing to make this post suitable for all audiences.
Lesson to take home? No matter how brilliant your post is, without a strong POC headline, nobody will read it.