Bonjour, I'm Remi. đź‘‹
First, let’s address the elephant in the room:
“How are we supposed to pronouce your name, Rémi?”
So, my full name is Rémi Mercier. It’s pronounced: ray · me · mercy · 'ey .
If you want to pronouce it like I do, you’ll have to roll those Rs.
Who am I?
I’m a programmer, a writer, and a former stained-glass maker (yep).
Mountainous DrĂ´me has been my home for the past 3 years. I love living there: quieter pace, beautiful landscapes and amazing food.
Main occupation: software engineer
I’ve worked in tech for ten years, and I’ve been a professional developer for the past five years, mainly focusing on back-end programming. Before being a programmer, I worked in product and marketing for startups. Before that, I held an awful lot of positions, both in non-tech fields for almost 15 years.
Interested in the professional side of things? Head over to the dedicated page.
Writing
I run this website where I share what I learned while building software. It’s my way of giving back to the dev community.
I focus on making things as simple to understand as possible: real-life examples, step-by-step tutorials, expressive naming, etc. No def foo @bar; end shenanigans.
I don’t have analytics on my website anymore, but in 2022, close to 20,000 unique readers spent time on my website. My posts are often featured in Ruby Weekly, HN, etc…
Newsletter
As of early 2023, my newsletter is just a good way to receive my new posts before anyone else.
We’re currently closing on 400 subscribers from all over the world!
I’m still looking to make it a more creative space. This will probably evolve in 2024 as I explore new ways of supporting my writing work (stay tuned!).
Drawing, design and art stuff
Drawing has played a big part in my life.
When I was 14, a teacher suggested I study design and applied arts. He had spotted me drawing caricatures of my schoolmates instead of taking notes.
Design has taught me a few important lessons:
- How to formulate a problem so it’s understandable.
- There are many ways to solve a problem.
- How to clearly articulate my thoughts.
- Better done than perfect.
A few arty things I like a lot: romanesque architecture, stained-glass (obviously!), generative art (Matt Deslauriers ❤️)…
I also enjoy building things with my hands: some low-key woodworking, anything that could come up in restoring a 18-th century house (and let me tell you, A LOT can come up!).