To start, while I was getting the idea for this post and sitting down to write it, I was listening to this set. I love electronic music, and this is one of my favorite DJs — actually one of my favorite sets of all time, I’m always coming back to it.
“Why have a blog in 2026? We have AI” and it even has a sound player embedded, where are we, 2005? Myspace ? Oh my god! So cringe!
Yeah, right now AI can write a lot, if not almost all, of our code, but we still need to keep our ability to write and think code sharp. We can’t just rely on any output that models give us — AI is actually impairing our ability to think and make decisions in some ways. There are some studies on this, showing how AI is deprecating our cognitive capabilities (here’s a recent post citing multiple ones). So that’s reason one, here are a few more.
Tech community nowadays
Right back in 2018, when I was doing my first degree in Business Administration, a friend of mine posted on Facebook something about a Node meetup. I didn’t even know what programming really was at that time (in my mind it was something only geniuses could do), so I asked her, and she just invited me to go. So there I was, arriving at this meetup — it was really small, something like 15 people, I think — and they started with some talks (I don’t even remember what they were about specifically), but then there was one where a guy showed a real-time chat he’d built using Elixir and Phoenix (hello first bleeding-edge guy 🧙♂️). We could open the link on our phones and start chatting with each other, and I just said to my friend, “Is he like a genius to do this?” and she answered, “No, this is actually pretty simple.” I met other people at the event, and after that my friend showed me some web development courses on Udemy, and I started doing it and just loved it!
I always loved computers, I was always the nerdy guy to my friends, and every time it was like “my laptop won’t boot, can you check it?” Anyway, from there I started joining some communities on Facebook and checking Stack Overflow constantly (omg, I learned A LOT there), and what caught my eye was the community. Everyone was helping each other, answering questions — there were even answers that read like essays — just showing how much the community cared about newcomers to IT. It was so cool, and I think we’ve lost a bit of that sense with AI and all the impact it’s having on our market. But as I said before, knowing the fundamentals and being able to code still really matters (I know that sounds obvious, but lately it doesn’t seem that way), and with all my experience, I think it’s my time to give back.
I still have A LOT to learn, even the basics, but everyone has something to teach.
Learning
Again, we have AI, so what now? Are we going to stop studying and evolving as developers, as humans? No, it’s different — models can actually accelerate our learning if used well. One good example is Matt Pocock, who created a skill called /teach, where you can use your LLM of choice to teach you anything. It’s not a silver bullet — everyone has their own way of learning — but it’s a good start.
As I just said, everyone has something to teach. That’s why I want to write about things I already know and have mastered, and also things I’m learning right now (like improving my system design knowledge, AI as a tool and how to apply it in real products, and even data structures and algorithms — since I’m starting to do some interviews, it’s good to be prepared).
Learning in public = learning and teaching
And for those who don’t know: the best way to learn is to teach, and it’s even better when you do it in public. You can read more about this in this essay by Swyx, a guy who moved from finance to software engineering back in 2018 (coincidentally, the year I made the same move). I love his blog, there’s a lot of good content there.
So, for anyone this might interest — I already have some side projects in progress (something I’d lost in the first years of my career; since then I’d mostly just learned on demand for whatever job needed it), and I’ll write at least one thought (cooler name for blog post 😎) a week.
And to finalize, some blogs that I’ve read for a long time, and some new ones:
- Tania Rascia — I like pretty much everything she writes (shoutout to her GOAT mixed with a RAM emoji 💨)
- Dan Abramov — Best posts about React ever.
- Kent C. Dodds — Taught me testing and good practices with React.
- Gabriel Ramos — My reference, my mentor, and he even wrote a book about tests (can’t recommend it enough!).
- Willian Justen — One of the first blogs I started reading (the idea of adding music to blog posts, I stole from him 😜).
- Gergely Orosz — A lot of interesting posts.
- Khalil Stemmler — By far the most comprehensive posts about frontend architecture, at incredibly high quality, extremely well written.
- Shawn (Swyx) — Already talked about him here, a big inspiration.
- Shai Yallin — New addition to my list, I’m liking his posts so far.
Thank you for reading :)