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Discover jargon from an unfamiliar field using LLMs to help you write better software.
I haven’t written PHP for over a decade. I haven’t even touched it since 2017. But in the spirit of legitimate peripheral participation, I asked a couple of LLMs to write a WordPress plugin for this blog. Within 15 minutes, I had a proof of concept from ChatGPT. Next, I got Claude to generate an even better version in one shot. I iterated to add a feature and said, “Hey! It compiles! Ship it!“
It was a fun experiment: a microcosm of failure, puzzle-solving, success, and iterative improvement.
I haven’t published since April because I’ve been afraid. I also avoided social media, news aggregators, and discussion forums for months. I’m done letting fear stop me. What was I afraid of? In this post I detail every single thing I’ve avoided admitting on this blog.
You should ship software that does nothing. Absolutely nothing. I’m not being cheeky about this. I have no hidden meaning. The very first thing you should deliver when you start a new web application is absolutely nothing.
Many people will tell you to ship a minimum viable product. Others say to ship a prototype to get feedback. Not me. I think you should ship a blank page to your production servers on day one.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a crisis of confidence. But tonight, I read Steve Yegge’s recent post, “Revenge of the Junior Developer.” In it, he lays out a vision of a future—only two years away—in which nobody writes code anymore. I felt a cocktail of anger, fear, worry, and disbelief. Then, I thought through the implications, and came up with a plan of action: Kerrick’s Wager.
I’ve been paid to write web applications for over a decade, but my only exposure to ASP.NET has been as an API consumer on the front-end, and I’ve never touched Blazor. That’s changing—I’m learning how to be a full-stack developer. There are almost too many books about the .NET platform, so I had to choose a few to focus on. I started by reading the front matter: the title, cover, foreword, preface or introduction, and table of contents of 24 different books. This was enough to compare and choose the books that I’ll read as soon as possible.
But there are two top contenders for the first book, and I need your help deciding!
I also made a list of 3 books that I’ll read once I’m familiar with T-SQL and the Clean Architecture. 3 more books made my “someday” list—I have no specific plans, but I’d like to read them eventually. At the end of this article I’ll reveal exactly which books made the cut, and ask you to help me choose between two books to learn ASP.NET Core. But first, here are my thoughts on each book.
I’ve been writing code for money for 17 years, but I’ve never used C# or any other .NET language. That’s changing—I’m learning how to be a full-stack developer. There are almost too many books about the platform, so I had to choose a few to focus on. I started by reading the front matter: the title, cover, foreword, preface or introduction, and table of contents of 26 different books. This was enough to compare and choose the 2 books that I’ll read as soon as possible. I also made a list of 7 books that I’ll read once I’m familiar with ASP.NET and Blazor. 6 more books made my “someday” list—I have no specific plans, but I’d like to read them eventually. At the end of this article I’ll reveal exactly which books made the cut. But first, here are my thoughts on each book.
Fizz Buzz, the children’s game turned coding interview question, requires little more than basic programming literacy to solve. But it has just enough complexity that it can also be used to illustrate some important tenets of object-oriented design through refactoring.
When I learned lean software development, I abandoned year-long planning at work and at home. This year, I broke my rule. I made a New Year’s resolution. I decided to broaden my skills so I could ship a full-stack enterprise web app completely on my own. No back-end developers, no product managers, no UI designers, and no vibe coding. Since I wrote Ruby years ago and Rails is having a Renaissance right now, I wrote down the following and taped it to my bedroom door:
In 2025, Kerrick is a Full-Stack Programmer
Develop & deploy Ruby on Rails apps, covered by automated tests, to real users.
I’ve been programming for over two decades, and I can’t make a full-stack enterprise web application.
