20/05/2025
The initial idea for this came from Derek Sivers and his now page. I’m going to be using it to share daily or weekly updates about my study, work and my projects. Derek always shares great content out there and still updates his now page, after 9+ years. Last I checked he was learning Mandarin, reading about AI and taking care of his pet rats.
I will post here frequently and share my journey as a software developer.
What I’m working on: This website with Hugo. I am going to be hosting this on my Hetzner instance and spining up my usual Nginx setup. This app will live right beside my other project, Recommendit which is a little show recommendation app I’ve made in my spare time.
What I’m reading: Designing Data-Intensive Applications This 600-pager seems to have everything regarding building scalable and maintainable systems. I’ve been suggested this a few times by different developers, and it was frequently shared on LinkedIn. With more time on my hands, it’s a great way to sharpen your skills. I might keep a separate notes-blog for this.
A great playlist I’m listening to: CBS: Pop Rock and Funk Records from Yugoslavia Great lists of underrated songs from the 70s that you’ve never listened to.
21/05/2025
What I’m working on: My Redis Implementation with CodeCrafters. A Great way to sharpen your skills, according to this advice from ThePrimaegen is to implement things from scratch. This is why I’m using most of my spare time nowadays to work on these types of projects, like my HTTP server implementation, Redis-lite implementation, and perhaps SQL Lite in the future. Doubling down on this projects is one of the best things I can do to speedup my job-finding process by enriching my portfolio.
What I’m reading: Today I grabbed Concurrency in C# Cookbook off the shelf, which delves deep into concurrency and different big topics. I made a short post with some notes on the book here, which I will update concurrently(no pun intended) with the Data Intensive Book Notes. A great read with an interesting style. I’ve found that having 2 or even 3 books at a time makes things overall more interesting with not much overhead in my case.
Great Tune I’m listening to: The Breeze and I (Spotify, Youtube)
22/05/2025
What I’m working on: Besides applying for jobs, I am trying hard on this SQL Lite from scratch project on Codecrafters. Codecrafters is a great platform to sharpen your skills as a developer of any experience. You do this by creating projects from scratch, that you regularly use, such as Http Server, Redis, or even your own BitTorrent.
What I’m reading: When a leap second broke half the internet by Nelson’s Webblog. An interesting throwback to 2012 where a Linux kernel thread with a misconfigured time broke all the services that depended on it, including MySQL, which was used for over 90% of the internet at the time. I found this piece from one of the references from Designing Data Intensive Systems
25/05/2025
What I’m working on: Exercises from the book Computer Systems: A Programmer’s Perspective, including the guide from Teach Yourself CS and the related exercise. I found this guide on one of the websites that offered free resources, and I thought it would be a great time to check out some must-learn topics that would provide thorough understanding of fundemental ideas in CS.
Great Tune for this weekend I’m playing on Repeat: Spanish Moon by Little Feat, Youtube
27/05/2025
What I’m working on: Going through these CS 61C Berkley Lecture Playlist on YouTube which I’m extensively pairing with Computer Systems: A Programmers’ Perspective.Both are available online for free. It looks like this book, along with Designing Data Intensive Systems is the best bang for the buck, so I’ll be working on those and sharing what I learn in the upcoming weeks.
02/06/2025
What I’m working on: Advent of code 2024. This 25-day challenge is intriguing, thought-provoking and magical. A great way to sharpen up your coding skills.
What I’m reading: C# Data Structures and Algorhitms 2024, 2nd Edition Brushing up on my basic C# knowledge after a failed interview. The book is very comprehensive, and easy to understand. For now, it mostly covers the very basics, most of which I’ve already known about. Hopefully going further it will get deeper as well.
09/06/2025
What I’m working on:Advent of code 2024. I’ve been locking in for these challenges every morning for the past few days.
What I’m reading: Expanding my C# knowledge with C# 12 in a Nutshell. This 1500-page banger seems to cover everything I’ve possibly wanted to know about C# and .NET, but didn’t know where to find. Both it’s depth and width of concepts is astonishing. I am currently on chapter 4 here, Advanced C# Features, but it has already previously covered C# Types (including access modifiers, deeper on abstractions, generics). Some of the concepts are used less in real projects, but it’s good to know that they exist at least. Terrific book so far.
17/06/2025
What I’m working on: Advent of code 2024. These fun challenges are still part of my daily warm-up when it comes to programming. I am also working on a fun marketplace for used and new goods BuySell.Com. I’ve spent the last few days implementing and thinking over some of the initial architecture and functionalities when it comes to this project. Here is the overview of the architecture Architecture Diagram.
What I’m reading: Basically still going deep on C# 12 in a Nutshell. Currently going through the .NET part of the book, which I believe is the most fun.
19/06/2025
What I’m working on: Working on a practice Buy&Sell Marketplace for new&used goods.
What’s helping me study: 2 Hours of German WW2 Officer to help you work/study/focus by Radical Living. This 2 hour video has been a blessing when it comes to focusing and doubling down on things for the past few months. Apart from it being ironic, absurd, and giving you exactly 2 hours to study(keeps track of the progress), it has been a great background worker I use. Obviously I don’t condone practices that are mentioned or anything that happened in WW2, this is mainly just for humor and some basic motivation.
27/06/2025
What I’m working on: I update this infrequently because I still do the same things. C# 12 in a Nutshell. and whatever else I grab off the shelf that day, like, say Designing Data Intensive Systems. People seem to only read one book at a time. I think it’s a waste of resources and time, since different styles may appeal to you, and other book might also have interesting ideas. I think of knowledge in engineering should always expand inside-out. You can almost think of your knowledge as a circle, that expands left and right as you gather more and more concepts and tools. There should be a roadmap, and a hierarchy of resources, but it mostly turns out nonlinear in the end anyways, and the best roadmap is the one you had.
07/08/2025
What I’m working on: Reading C# in a Nutshell, currently on the chapter on async/await and threads. Working on BuySellDotCom pet project and reading Designing Data Intensive Systems.
Playlist I’m listening to: that’s why Tchaikovsky is the BEST Russian composer | Essential Classical Music. This really helps the focus.
07/10/2025
What I’m working on: Reading C# in a nutshell, currently on chapter on streams, and still working on BuySellDotCom. Slowly ramping up different services and the controllers with a mix of a functional design and clean architecture.
Short Wikipedia Entry I’m reading: List of people who have lived in airports. This fun entry has dozens of people that had lived in airports for prolonged amount of time. Staying in airports, we think, wow, I could live here, it has everything. Tell that to these people.