Newsletter #1: Fri, Apr 25, 2025
On the road to clarity,
This weekend, I'm riding in the MS-150. It's a good metaphor for this launch: challenging, rewarding, a little nerve-wracking, and entirely worth it.
New Resources This Week
- PR Review Checklist
- What to think through
- What to question
- Automation
- Vibe Coding Checklist
- Is AI generating your code?
- Designed to help you sense when you're improvising or missing structure. Suitable for both AI pair programming and solo focus work.
This Week's Insight: Writing a Resume Summary as a Value Proposition
Your resume isn't just a list of skills. It's the impact and results you've created over your career.
It's your value proposition. You are saying:
This is why I'm worth working with.
Don't just list your goals when writing the objective or summary on your resume. This is your chance to show your value. Think of it as your personal value proposition:
- What makes you uniquely valuable?
- Can you say it clearly?
Example: "I blend software development with UX to create scalable, delightful solutions."
In product and UX, we use value propositions to define what makes a product worth it. You're doing the same thing for you.
More on value propositions:
This Week's Listen: The Philosophy of Software Design - with John Ousterhout on The Pragmatic Engineer
🎙 Podcast: John Ousterhout on A Philosophy of Software Design
Notes and thoughts from the episode:
- Depth in code = simple interface, powerful internals
- Empathy means thinking like the user of your code
- Patterns are not prescriptions. They're context tools
- Design twice. Even the "bad idea" version is valuable
- We grow the most when we reflect on what went wrong and try again
🗂️ Bonus links:
- React Flow — for visual UIs
- Clean Classes Tip Sheet
- Ousterhout vs Clean Code
🔔 Upcoming Events
📅 Wed, April 30 – 7:00 PM CST
Club Discussion (vote on TDD or Software Design in Discord)
📅 Thu, May 15 – 7:00 PM CST
Real Talk: Design, Decisions & Tradeoffs
📅 Wed, May 28 – 7:00 PM CST
Club Discussion #2
"I have toppled worlds. Sometimes, I wait for people to topple their world. Until then, I live in it and I shine."
— The Doctor (Doctor Who)
Remember:
Impossible things are usually just very, very difficult things that most people aren't willing to fail at enough times to succeed.
We're doing this work together.
—Tish.
