Verbs, not nouns.
I am not « a developer ». I build, I write, I play. Nouns are cages; verbs are practice. What I do every day is who I am. The rest is a business card.
The way
Naruto called it a nindō: a way you never go back on. Zen would call it practice. I just call it how I try to work.
Seven principles I return to when things get hard, in code and elsewhere. Not rules. Reminders.
Practice over mood.
Motivation comes and goes; deliberate practice compounds. Show up, do the reps, review honestly: on the board, in the code, in the writing.
learned from ChessMood
Every sentence earns its place.
K&R taught me what clean writing looks like; clean code is the same discipline. If a line doesn't earn its place, prose or code, it goes.
from The C Programming Language
Question the rules you inherited.
Lakhiani calls them Brules, bullshit rules: assumptions you follow without deciding if they deserve obedience. The question: "Is this a real constraint, or a convention I never thought to challenge?" Examine before you obey.
from The Code of the Extraordinary Mind Read →
Decide under pressure.
A fighter pilot's framework: brief, decide, debrief. Complexity is no excuse for hesitation in systems, in code, in life.
from Au-delà du Cockpit Read →
Leave space.
Ma: the interval that gives things meaning. In a page, in a schedule, in a conversation. Emptiness is not absence; it's respect for what remains.
Lose well.
I sit across from grandmasters and lose on time in winning positions. The point was never to avoid losing. It's to come back with the lesson.
Some part of a mistake is always correct.
— Tartakower