i was 14yo, undead mage, freshly lvl 60
late at night, a group was looking for a mage
i was the only one answering
that’s how i ended up in my first raid
i lied to get in, told them it wasn’t my first time
my rotation was shit, gear completely unoptimized
but i listened and followed every order
end of the raid, the guild master asks me to jump on a 1-1 voice chat
he basically tells me i’m dead last in dps and that it’s not normal
i won’t be invited again and blacklisted
so i tell him
i lied to you because i just wanted to join a group and play with people
what do i need to do to come back next time?
he gives me a todo list
farm these items
get these enchants
watch this guide and learn your rotation
you have 3 days
“come back after that, i’ll check everything”
i barely slept for 3 days
came back almost full pre-bis, fully enchanted, rotation learned
ended up #3 dps
still not perfect
but the guild master saw the commitment and offered me a spot in the second roster
i listened, executed and came back stronger
at 14yo
few weeks later i became a recruiter for the guild
learned a lot through that process
A kid who knows how to raid in WoW is unironically a better hire than 99% of non gamers. They develop team skills, coordination, leadership, how to master the respect of 40 people, how to share loot, maintaining a raid schedule, showing up on time, clear direct communication, how
People rewrite in Rust or Go and claim that as the reason for huge performance gains, at face value that's cool but when looking at what actually makes stuff faster it's almost never the language. A small thread.
Great advice for tech leads in general. Always assume there’s something more important and more challenging for you once you’ve gained the experience of successfully shipping your current project. Keep it simple.
No @convex is NOT "just a Postgress wrapper".
explained.convex.dev/build-your-own…
To prove it I thought it would be fun if we tried to build a database with Convex's properties from scratch and see where we get to.
I added an example to every item in the Interface Cheat Sheet so it’s easier to understand each point.
The cheat sheet is a mix of best practices and some of my personal preferences that I like using to make stuff feel better on the web.
interfaces.dev/cheat-sheet
The "whiteboard defense:" I should be able to pull you aside at any moment and ask you to explain any customer-facing system you've shipped. You should be able to clearly explain how it works and defend the decisions you made. This is my benchmark for responsible AI usage.
I don't expect line-level familiarity with the code. I don't care if you remember the exact function name or implementation detail. You may not even know it. I don't care.
But if I ask "why did you do X instead of Y?", "what happens if this actor behaves maliciously?", "what data structure did you use here and why?", or "where does this fail?" you should be able to answer confidently.
For PoCs, demos, experiments, whatever: I don't care. Generate 100% of it and understand none of it. Speed over quality every time in those specific scenarios.
But if you're shipping customer-facing work, you can't be shipping things you don't understand at a high level.
total MCP victory, some quick misc thoughts about why MCP is so much better than CLIs:
- indexable tool catalog letting agents scale to unlimited tools
- no requirements to be running a full sandbox
- consistent auth across all MCPs rather than each CLI inventing its own auth
- multi account support for all MCPs unlike CLIs
- implementations like code mode let the model know what will be returned allowing for super efficient token usage unlike CLIs
the reasons it took this long for MCPs to finally have their moment is mostly due to bad MCP implementations in clients:
- you had to restart your whole client to use an mcp (no hot reloading)
- agents weren't as familiar with debugging mcps as they were CLIs, so it was a lot easier for people to get set up using them
but over the past year, things like codex and claude plugins have all been using MCP under the hood, i.e computer use is an MCP, i believe claude artifacts are an MCP app, just the silent steady adoption
there is still an element of MCPs that is 'this MCP could've been an OpenAPI spec' but that'll go away as things like triggers get more adoption
at the end of the day, what's important to realize is while yes there are these difference between CLIs / MCPs / etc they're all just different ways of doing tool calling, and you can do some combination of lazy loading, searchable tools, and filtering to build efficient harnesses
I was not expecting things to go this way, but I think MCPs are better than CLIs for most integrations.
The models have gotten much better at tool calling, we can defer tools & MCP is now stateless.
If you need to compose/filter data, add params like query to your MCP tools.
My grandma passed away this year.
Today my mom handed me a card from my grandma. She made me a birthday card months in advance, knowing she wouldn’t be here.
One last unexpected message from her was a wonderful gift.
So thoughtful.
That’s love.❤️
I can’t stress enough how little an idea matters compared to the agency of the people executing the idea.
I have had the privilege of knowing and sometimes even working with some of the most successful people (by various metrics).
The difference between mediocre and excellent work and outcomes is predominantly one of agency.
In practice this means: they dont wait for things to happen to them they go out and make things happen for them.
They don’t wait for someone else to do something, for someone to teach them, for someone to give them the path, etc. They just go out and find a way to do it.
I think the single biggest superpower these people have is the realization/belief that the world around them is completely mutable. Most everything that happens is because a person made it happen.
I used to tell people to look around the room you’re sitting in. Look at everything. Every noun. It almost all exists because a person willed it into existence. Nothing is stopping you from doing the same.
I see people online all the time dismissing someone else’s success because “I had that idea first” or whatever. I mean… yeah? If so then the difference is… you. So a bit of a self own whenever I hear that.
Number one tip: act with agency.
My blog post about how I manage agents is finally ready. It first explains my bespoke `plans` setup, and then explains how @cursor_ai new Projects feature enabled me |o do so much more. It was the missing piece for me. Check it out:
arslan.io/2026/09/11/how…
if you build animated interfaces for the web, this is essential reading
a clear, practical look at the main thread and the real cost of animation in javascript and css
the difference isn't just measurable, it's something you feel ↓
🔗 kciter.so/posts/the-expe…
Happy Friday, friends!
Several of you have requested a certificate of completion for interfacecraft.dev, and I'm delighted to share that you can now grab one in your membership settings in the Library.
Enjoy!
@atpaawej 1. Learn to read code
2. Learn to use the terminal
3. Learn how good teams prevent human/agent mistakes (types, tests, linting)
4. Learn how to structure your app to make your tests/types better (deep modules, seams, adapters)
5. Learn ubiquitous language from DDD
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