Sometimes, I write.
I find joy in building things. Then, I find joy in writing about it. Want to know when the next post hits? Grab the RSS feed.
The first panel is done (and it looks super cool) (Ruby Stained Glass Notes #06)
This is episode #06 of the Ruby Stained Glass Notes, a pop-up newsletter in which I write about the process of building a stained glass panel celebrating Ruby. Today, I solder the first test panel together, and show you what it looks like!
Read this essay →What have I been cooking this week? (Ruby Stained Glass Notes #05)
In the 5th episode of the Ruby Stained Glass Notes, we talk about cutting glass and where impostor syndrome come from.
Read this essay →Let's talk about tools (Ruby Stained Glass Notes #04)
This is episode #04 of the Ruby Stained Glass Notes, a pop-up newsletter in which I write about the process of building a stained glass panel celebrating Ruby. Today, I talk about tools!
Read this essay →Square? Or freeform? (Ruby Stained Glass Notes #03)
This is episode #03 of the Ruby Stained Glass Notes, a pop-up newsletter in which I write about the process of building a stained glass panel celebrating Ruby. Today, I riff on the drawing and ask you which version you prefer!
Read this essay →Ideas are cheap. But glass? Not so much. (Ruby Stained Glass Notes #02)
This is episode #02 of the Ruby Stained Glass Notes, a pop-up newsletter in which I write about the process of building a stained-glass panel celebrating Ruby. Today, we talk about how to choose glass, and how stained glass windows should follow the open-closed principle too.
Read this essay →This idea cost me an ice cream (Ruby Stained Glass Notes #01)
This is episode #01 of the Ruby Stained Glass Notes, a pop-up newsletter in which I write about the process of building a stained-glass panel celebrating Ruby.
Read this essay →I'm making a collectible limited-edition Ruby stained glass panel
After talking with Jeremy Smith and Jess Brown on the IndieRails podcast about stained glass and how I transitioned to programming in Ruby, I’ve had this crazy idea that I could tie the two together in a weird project. Well, here goes nothing!
Read this essay →An impromptu lightning talk at Rubycon
Last week, I spent an extended weekend in Rimini, Italy, for the first edition of Rubycon where I gave a lightning talk connecting my reconversion story with the current trend of throwing junior developers under the bus for the sake of (AI) productivity.
Read this essay →IndieRails Podcast Interview
I joined Jeremy Smith and Jess Brown on the IndieRails podcast to talk about how I managed the transition from stained-glass master to freelance software engineer.
Read this essay →Using Minitest::Spec in Rails? Watch out for the lifecycle hooks!
A small mistake sent me on an overly long investigation into Minitest hooks, and how Rails integrates with these.
Read this essay →Reflecting on 2025
Time to recap a good year.
Read this essay →More Minitest::Spec shenanigans
While I already covered the basics of `Minitest::Spec`, I forgot to discuss a few aspects of the spec flavor. This post serves as a complement to the previous one and digs a bit deeper into some extra `Minitest::Spec` shenanigans.
Read this essay →What is Minitest::Spec?
In my previous post, I talked a lot about how Minitest comes in various syntax flavors. One flavor I did not cover much is Minitest's spec extension.
Read this essay →Marketing Haikus
Just a list of haikus, mostly written when I was working (and being bored out of my wits) in marketing. Making fun as a tool to push through.
Read this essay →Lost in Minitest? Start here!
I have a confession to make: I have never used Minitest in the seven years I've been a professional programmer. Lured by the promise of speed and wide adoption, I decided to try Minitest. Then I hit an unexpected roadblock.
Read this essay →Finally learning a new language
For years, people around me have been telling me to learn new programming languages—that I shouldn’t corner myself with Ruby (and Rails). And for years, I couldn’t muster the mental energy to do it.
Read this essay →Build a minimal decorator with Ruby in 30 minutes
A while ago, I needed to add some view-related instance methods to a model. Decorators are my go-to pattern to handle this kind of logic. So, I built a minimal decorator from scratch, added a bunch of extra behaviors, only to end up abstracting all of that away. Follow along!
Read this essay →Speed up RSpec tests: understand lifecycle and execution
One of RSpec's strengths is the legibility of its behavior-based DSL. The other side of this coin is that the proliferation of small example blocks introduces a performance overhead.
Read this essay →How I use git add --patch for reviewing my work
When working on features, I strive to preserve my flow, which means, that after a few hours, I'll have a bunch of untracked files waiting for me in git. I use `git add --patch` to effectively bundling my work into separate commits.
Read this essay →Poking around PostgreSQL full-text search: a beginners primer
Today, I want to share a different type of post. Nothing polished. Just me goofing around with PostgreSQL's full-text search capabilities.
Read this essay →