Time off is important. I had three days off this week and did nothing but make clothes, go for walks and read books. It was glorious. No blog post this week because I was too busy resting. Hope you have a lovely weekend!

This week's post is early because I'm off today - take care of yourselves and see you next week! danaciocan.com/self-care-sa...

If you wanted more rambly thoughts about AI from me, here you go. If not, keep scrolling and have a nice Sunday! danaciocan.com/ai-is-there-...

I'm tired and AI really isn't helping... But - I passed my probation this week 🎉 so I'm definitely treating myself to a nice rum this evening! That doesn't preclude me from being wrong though - read all about it on my blog this week. Hope you have a good one! danaciocan.com/ai-fatigue-i...

I've gathered some thoughts about why taking a step down in your career is a Good Thing and nothing to feel bad about. To be honest, I am still trying to convince myself of this a bit sometimes, so maybe this article is for me as well as for you. danaciocan.com/there-is-no-...

This week I remembered how awesome feature flags are, how much I like technical writing and that AI isn't always to be trusted... Hope you had a good one! danaciocan.com/feature-flag...

Super interesting article: localghost.dev/blog/stop-ge... I feel like a lot of people aren't really thinking about the wider implications of AI, mostly because they're afraid of getting left behind...

This pretty neatly sums up my feelings towards AI: nolanlawson.com/2026/02/07/w... "I don’t celebrate the new world, but I also don’t resist it." - yup

I've got another day off today, so here's this week's post - I wrote about how releasing new features doesn't have to be a big deal, context switching (the bane of my existence) and impostor syndrome. I'll be back to my normal schedule next week, but until then - bye! danaciocan.com/releasing-ne...

Got another blog post for you! This one talks about knowing when to quit, AI being a godsend actually (with caveats) and how to deal with the isolation of working from home. I have today off and am off to Costco later because of _course_ I am! danaciocan.com/on-knowing-w...

I keep forgetting this, so I'm posting it here in the hopes I don't forget next time: in Next.js app router, client components get an initial render on the server and are then hydrated in a second pass. This is very similar to how pages router used to work, just on a component rather than page level

I had my weekly roundup all ready to go and... I forgot to post it. So here it is - I talk about the importance of monitoring, multitasking with AI, asking for help and dealing with feelings danaciocan.com/weekly-round...

Trying to get out of the Google ecosystem after decades of being in it is kind of tricky... First step: Brave.

jQuery 4.0 is out - while this makes me nostalgic, I can't really see myself reaching for it. you? blog.jquery.com/2026/01/17/j...

Did another book review! This one is about a book called Techno Feudalism. The TL;DR is that this is very economics heavy and tech light, but I still learned some interesting stuff danaciocan.com/book-review-...

This week's roundup has a lot of Next.js app router in it - I must make some more detailed posts about what I'm learning because it's fascinating! danaciocan.com/weekly-round...

I've written my first book review! This is something I've wanted to do for ages as I love reading and this is a fun way to combine my two hobbies. "Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work" is Sarah Wynn-Williams' compelling memoir about her time at Facebook. danaciocan.com/careless-peo...

This week's roundup: danaciocan.com/weekly-round... My ramble this week is about post-Christmas brain, how to make your migrations easier with tests, what to do when launches don't quite go to plan and the importance of fun at work. Have a lovely weekend everyone!

youtube.com/shorts/kB5Ol... could not agree more. I wish it _didn't_ work so that we could justify not having to do all of this stuff that harms our users 😭

Spotify should be made to answer for all these "wrapped" summaries now. I've seen LinkedIn, Asana, Cursor and Sainsbury's ones... It's too much!

The new Next.js bundle analyzer that ships with v16.1 looks super nifty! nextjs.org/blog/next-16... Can't wait to give it a go

Super interesting blog post showing how RSCs work under the hood: overreacted.io/introducing-... Need to come back to this later, because I'm still figuring out what I do for work right now 😅

Happy New Year! I've been at work less than an hour and I'm already feeling overwhelmed 😅 Being a Software Engineer is a lot isn't it

Last weekly roundup for this year - fair warning: it's a bit of a ramble danaciocan.com/weekly-round... Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone!

really do not recommend the "razorblade throat" variants of COVID going round atm - does exactly what it says on the tin and is extremely unpleasant. 0/10.

Fascinating article by @charity.wtf about hierarchy in engineering charity.wtf/2022/09/23/t... I took a step "down" recently (from Staff to Senior) because I was no longer experiencing joy at work (I am again now!) and this article resonated deeply with me. Definitely worth a read

I just completed "Trash Compactor" - Day 6 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/6 That was harder than it should have been - I'm tired

The next weekly roundup is out. Have a lovely weekend everyone! danaciocan.com/weekly-round...

Day 5 of #adventofcode done! It's so much more fun having a buddy to chat about it with 😊

Day 4 of #adventofcode all wrapped up

Blimey, I never knew there were this many Dev advent calendars: adrianroselli.com/2025/12/web-... 🤯

interesting news this - bun.com/blog/bun-joi...

Did part 1 of day 3 of #adventofcode this morning before work. Looked at part 2 and immediately didn't like Advent of Code any more

Spilled tea over my mechanical keyboard and now the down arrow switch is stuck 🫠 I feel conflicted because while I really like this keyboard in many ways, it has caused me nothing but trouble because its switches keep doing stuff like this even without tea. So maybe it's time to get a new one

Did part 1 of day 2 of #adventofcode this morning before work. Have some ideas for how to do part 2 but not counting my chickens after yesterday 😆

I've completed "Secret Entrance" - Day 1 - Advent of Code 2025 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2025/day/1

Did part 1 of day 1 of #adventofcode this morning before work and have a pretty good idea of how to do part 2 🤔

#adventofcode day! 🎄🎅☃️

I've been meaning to write about this for ages. If you are currently looking for a new role, here's what I learned from my job search this year. The market is tough and my heart goes out to you if you are going through redundancy or struggling to find work danaciocan.com/job-hunting-...

how is #adventofcode2025 already upon us?? 🫠

Test-driven development saved me today - I've been implementing a React component that's got some nuance to it and having the tests there from the get go has made it so easy to refactor and simplify. Hooray for TDD!

I'm thinking of doing "weekly roundups" on my blog where I talk about all the things I learned in the previous week - I just think it would be neat to have a bit of a log and if someone else can learn from it too, even better!

huh - did not know there was a JSX-enabled version of markdown. I look forward to exploring what that will allow me to do...

Something reminded me of the alternatives to the TODO comment - FIXME, REFACTOR, HACK, BUG etc. Does anyone still use those?

Every day another agentic framework. Kind of over it now - can I just use the tools I've only just gotten used to please?

Had a play with displaying markdown files in Next.js app router this morning - thought I'd share how I did it because it turns out, it's super easy! danaciocan.com/how-to-displ...

Doing some serious in-depth reading on Next.js' app router - any useful articles, videos or other resources you'd recommend I check out? There should be a couple of blog posts coming out of this

Always a bit scary when you propose a completely new approach for an ongoing project, but so good when the team listens and is appreciative of your ideas 😊

If you haven't read Cory Doctorow's "Enshittification" yet, I highly recommend you do - I listened to the audiobook and it was entertaining (I couldn't put it down) as well as informative. It also made me feel slightly ill - so sad to see what's happened to our beautiful internet!

Had a fantastic time at #TechMids 2025. What an event! So lovely to see so many familiar faces and I learned a lot from all the talks. Well done and thank you to the team of organisers who clearly put a LOT of love and care into it. This is why grassroots events are the best 💜