Allow me to pre-introduce myself

This is my blog. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

This is mostly an exercise for myself. Mainly as a way to learn, but also as an opportunity to reflect and analyze. But really I do enjoy writing, so hopefully what I publish will resonate with some of you.

While not my first foray into blogging or online posting — I was rather prolific on LiveJournal a few decades ago; I know, please hold your applause — I do think that publishing one's writing takes a lot more planning, refining, and consistency in its themes and communication than simply journaling. The latter is a wonderful and necessary exercise that helps to inspire and even guide the former, but to put it in software terms, it's similar to deploying production-quality code as opposed to putting together a prototype. All to say, I will put some honest time and effort into the articles I'll be posting; with a target of publishing one article a week.

As I already know what tends to occupy my thoughts and my time, I can essentially guarantee that the most common themes will revolve around being a software engineer in agentic times, pointing like a crazy person to metaphors in sports (especially soccer), referring to the latest book that I'm reading because you just HAVE to read it, and most ambitiously, discussing some of my side projects now that agentic code generation empowers developers to iterate so much faster, even if it's always going to come with a healthy set of challenges.

I also rather enjoy taking pictures, not that I claim to be a particularly gifted photographer. But I'll share some of my favorites from time to time. If that piques your curiosity, you can check the About page to get an inkling of what that will look like.

I also want to give proper acknowledgement to the catalyst for the inception of this blog: Alexey Grigorev, the instructor of the AI Devtools Zoomcamp I signed up for. I found his arguments about learning in public particularly persuasive. I also appreciated the importance of writing a good README.md, and I can vouch for the fact that Datatalks.club courses are worth looking into if you're interested in up-skilling Machine Learning, Data Engineering, MLOps, LLM, and/or how to use AI Dev Tools as an engineer. When it comes to learning more about AI, here's a lot of noise and not all instruction out there is accessible or useful, and sometimes a bit too strong on the vibes. DataTalks.Club offers simple yet very comprehensive curricula, and I'm here for it.

To kick things off, these are the next few articles I will publish over the coming weeks:

• Adapting to the software development process in the age of AI, and acknowledging the challenges that come with its meteoric growth
• On leadership, the benefits of having experience as a software developer, and acknowledging the skills you must learn to quickly develop or improve upon as a people manager
• Discussing the importance of side projects, and how they can guide your learning journey while helping you build a portfolio that go a long way to give a more comprehensive way for employers to better ascertain your creativity, how you think, and how you solve problems
• The challenges of time management, discipline, emotional intelligence, and responsibilities

I am currently working on a backlog of articles that will be ready to publish, but I don't intend on being overly rigid about my publication style or schedule. If a new topic is timely or happens to strike my fancy, I'll be sure to write about it and release it when appropriate.

If you read any of my work: thank you, I hope we can all learn from each other. I encourage push back and constructive discussion, but please keep things positive. I won't engage with any form of negativity, and will always aim to channel kindness, generosity, and support in my own work.

— Yacine