Non-exhaustive list of content I’ve read/seen that left an impression or that I would recommend to anyone. I’ve tried to leave a small text for each one explaining why they are here.

It’s a mix of everything related to software engineering: from people to processes and uh, well, software. They are kind of grouped by similar theme:

• The Consensus: It’s a really good website for everything hardcore software related.

• My AI Adoption Journey: In an avalance on AI doom/hype/hate content, I find Mitchell Hashimoto’s take one of the most sensible, also because the man can back it up.

“I really don’t care one way or the other if AI is here to stay, I’m a software craftsman that just wants to build stuff for the love of the game.”

• Fallthrough: I like how the hosts don’t try to just sell you something, but actually try to reason on what’s happening. They have really good guests.

• Choose Boring Technology: A good counterpoint to the “use the right tool for the job” advice that gets thrown around sometimes without much thinking behind.

• Java for Everything: My main takeway is that one should really think about the trade-offs and the long-run before making decisions.

• Don’t Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice: Even when I don’t believe that the title “programmer” means what it says there, it is a well-written article about the reality of the profession and what we should keep focus on first, loving computers it’s hardly the reason one is employed.

• Value over replacement in software engineering: It’s a nice framework to have when doing a self-evaluation of one’s work.

• Pure and impure software engineering: I see the classification as nothing but a vehicle to talk about the reality of engineers and software.

• How to ask good questions

• Get your work recognized: write a brag document.

• Cheerleading: This advice seems obvious once you hear it but I am someone whose default behaviour is to lay low and interact once in a while, since I often think that what I could share doesn’t have any particular value.

• Publishing your work increases your luck : Again, the mindset where you only posts something you think has real value is a disservice to your career. It’s all about being present and having a signal.

• About 40 hours

• You Might Be Better Off Without Pull Requests: I liked the history recap around VCSs and it mirrors my own experience feeling how bindly following what you’re taught is not a good idea.

• The one ring problem: abstraction and our quest for power: A really good post about software design. Everything by Ted Kaminski is really good.

• Test, don’t (just) verify: Proofs are not a silver bullet.

• My Kind of REPL: It’s a fun read and I liked the “testing-as-observation” mindset.

• Notes on structured concurrency, or: Go statement considered harmful: Such a cool exploration of design decisions in language/libraries.

• Why async Rust?: How async/await came to be, design decisions and trade-offs. It’s a really good read if you are interested in language design.