Alright, let’s talk about my dive into Henrique Rocha’s stuff. I stumbled upon his work a while back, and something about his approach to, well, everything just clicked. So, I decided to actually do some of the things he talks about, not just read about them. Here’s how it went down.
First off, I started with his core principles. I mean, you gotta understand the “why” before you can nail the “how,” right? So, I spent a solid afternoon just reading through his keynotes and articles, trying to distill the core ideas. It was a lot of high-level stuff, but I started to get a sense of his overall philosophy: keep it simple, focus on value, and iterate constantly.
Next, I needed a project. I can’t just think about this, I need to get my hands dirty. I picked a small, personal project – a little script to automate a really tedious task I do every week. Nothing fancy, just something that would save me some time. I made a list of what the script needed to do, keeping it as concise as possible. No feature creep allowed!
Then, the coding began. I actually used a framework that Rocha mentioned, something I’d never touched before. The initial setup was a pain, I’m not gonna lie. I spent a good couple of hours just wrestling with dependencies and configuration. But once I got past that hurdle, things started to move. I broke the script down into small, manageable chunks, focusing on one thing at a time. Test, test, test – that was the mantra. I probably wrote more test code than actual script code, but it was worth it. Each time I finished a small function, I’d write a test to make sure it did exactly what it was supposed to do.
I hit a few roadblocks along the way, of course. There was one particular bug that took me almost a whole day to track down. It turned out to be a stupid typo, but hey, that’s coding. I just kept chipping away at it, searching Stack Overflow, and eventually, I found the problem.
After a week, I had a working script! It wasn’t perfect, but it did the job. And that’s when the real learning started. I began refactoring the code, making it cleaner and more efficient. I found a couple of places where I could use Rocha’s suggestions, cleaning up the code and optimizing the flow.
But the biggest win was the mindset shift. I started approaching problems differently. Instead of trying to solve everything at once, I focused on breaking things down into small, testable pieces. It was like my brain had been rewired. It wasn’t just about writing code; it was about building something valuable in a sustainable way.
To wrap up, here’s what I learned:
- Start small: Don’t try to boil the ocean. Pick a small, manageable project and focus on doing it well.
- Test relentlessly: Write tests for everything, even the simplest functions. It will save you time in the long run.
- Iterate constantly: Don’t be afraid to refactor your code. The first version is never the best version.
- Embrace simplicity: Keep things as simple as possible. Complexity is the enemy of maintainability.
I still got a long way to go before I am close to Rocha’s level, but this experiment gave me a taste of what’s possible. And I’m definitely gonna keep exploring the world through his lens.
