It’s a trend I’m seeing across the board. Fewer and fewer people are wanting to learn in a structured way, or to hone their technical skills. Everything is getting outsourced to AI. I like the newsletter as is, but perhaps others will reveal a new direction that is worth pivoting to. I don’t know, I just feel educators are swimming against the tide.
Hi, thanks for what you've been doing so far! I'm already working as a junior software engineer. In your list, what interests me personally are:
- System design and architecture
- Testing and maintenance
- Engineering excellence
I've learned a lot from your challenges. They're a great resource because you have to think and search instead of just following a pre-written solution!
I love these challenges. A few colleagues and I solve them after work to relive the pre-vibe-coding days when learning meant reading docs, researching, and building knowledge from first principles.
One suggestion: make more challenges AI-focused. Small challenges around LLMs, context engineering, memory engineering, evals, agent design, and knowledge bases can serve as entry points into larger AI domains. They don't need to be deep; they just need to spark curiosity and provide a clear path for further exploration.
The other topics are valuable too, but a stronger AI focus would give me a clearer reason to return every week because I'd know I'll discover something directly relevant to building AI applications.
Hi, thank you for the newsletter, and interesting challenges. I have enjoyed using it a way of improving my skills.
To offer a counter point to the question of AI. Anytime I build a personal project with AI I feel no satisfaction in the building, no accomplishment in finishing it, just empty.
I understand however that AI is going to be part of our lives going forward, and its good to be well versed in using it too. So would be good to have a mix of topics to keep things fresh.
Hi John ! I started recently (after filtering through all the noise around AI on the internet) and I have learnt about fundamentals that I haven’t thought about before when I was building tools or applications.
It is sad that such a wonderful platform is not gaining the worthwhile traction and popularity.
I would like to vote to go with 1(coding challenges) + 3(architecture, system design, testing, software engineering).
Having said that, my suggestion for the platform would be to encourage people to post on their social platforms (LinkedIn, dev.to, Reddit threads, etc.) after they work on every challenge by saying a few words about what they did and what they learnt.
This might go a long way to gaining traction and popularity.
Hey Jon! As a systems coder I would love to see more challenges featuring systems coding challenges. For example a simple challenge where you code something simple like the `ls` CLI utility. It would also be a good idea if you include a solution to your exercises so we can check your work. Please let me know if this helps.
Cool. Glad you liked the comment Jon. And it would also be cool if you offer some tutorials on programming concepts. That would also be fun to see too.
And what is love is reading the official RFCs , grinding to lowest level of implementation and building the core understanding of system
And everything comes from doing that by MYSELF
No vibe coding
No AI
I still remember the first newsletter for me implementing the BitTorrent myself and that opened my thinking to some many ways
So summing up
John, please continue doing what you’re doing and I’ll not pick any specific topics cause everything is still on the table which challenges you to grind and coming up with an engineering solution
It’s a trend I’m seeing across the board. Fewer and fewer people are wanting to learn in a structured way, or to hone their technical skills. Everything is getting outsourced to AI. I like the newsletter as is, but perhaps others will reveal a new direction that is worth pivoting to. I don’t know, I just feel educators are swimming against the tide.
It certainly feels that way.
Hi, thanks for what you've been doing so far! I'm already working as a junior software engineer. In your list, what interests me personally are:
- System design and architecture
- Testing and maintenance
- Engineering excellence
I've learned a lot from your challenges. They're a great resource because you have to think and search instead of just following a pre-written solution!
Many thanks for the support and feedback.
Thanks for the coding challenges. It would help if you could include these topics in addition.
- System design and architecture
- LLM and generative AI
Thanks for the feedback.
I love these challenges. A few colleagues and I solve them after work to relive the pre-vibe-coding days when learning meant reading docs, researching, and building knowledge from first principles.
One suggestion: make more challenges AI-focused. Small challenges around LLMs, context engineering, memory engineering, evals, agent design, and knowledge bases can serve as entry points into larger AI domains. They don't need to be deep; they just need to spark curiosity and provide a clear path for further exploration.
The other topics are valuable too, but a stronger AI focus would give me a clearer reason to return every week because I'd know I'll discover something directly relevant to building AI applications.
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. Much appreciated.
Hi John, thanks you all of this. I have recently found out all your works. And actually, I would like to hear more about this challenges.
The challenges including system design and architectural concepts would be more rewarding.
Thank you.
Hi, thank you for the newsletter, and interesting challenges. I have enjoyed using it a way of improving my skills.
To offer a counter point to the question of AI. Anytime I build a personal project with AI I feel no satisfaction in the building, no accomplishment in finishing it, just empty.
I understand however that AI is going to be part of our lives going forward, and its good to be well versed in using it too. So would be good to have a mix of topics to keep things fresh.
1. Coding challenges and practical projects
2. Software engineering, architecture and system design
- System design and architecture
- Testing strategies
- Building and designing AI systems
Hi John ! I started recently (after filtering through all the noise around AI on the internet) and I have learnt about fundamentals that I haven’t thought about before when I was building tools or applications.
It is sad that such a wonderful platform is not gaining the worthwhile traction and popularity.
I would like to vote to go with 1(coding challenges) + 3(architecture, system design, testing, software engineering).
Having said that, my suggestion for the platform would be to encourage people to post on their social platforms (LinkedIn, dev.to, Reddit threads, etc.) after they work on every challenge by saying a few words about what they did and what they learnt.
This might go a long way to gaining traction and popularity.
Hey Jon! As a systems coder I would love to see more challenges featuring systems coding challenges. For example a simple challenge where you code something simple like the `ls` CLI utility. It would also be a good idea if you include a solution to your exercises so we can check your work. Please let me know if this helps.
Cool. Glad you liked the comment Jon. And it would also be cool if you offer some tutorials on programming concepts. That would also be fun to see too.
TBH, I am student trying to learn to code, so i would go with learn to code. But also other fields excites me and i do read these emails...
I'd be interested in building AI products and system design and architecture.
I absolutely love these challenges
And what is love is reading the official RFCs , grinding to lowest level of implementation and building the core understanding of system
And everything comes from doing that by MYSELF
No vibe coding
No AI
I still remember the first newsletter for me implementing the BitTorrent myself and that opened my thinking to some many ways
So summing up
John, please continue doing what you’re doing and I’ll not pick any specific topics cause everything is still on the table which challenges you to grind and coming up with an engineering solution
Thank you so much for all these newsletters!!!
I also like it as is but I would read anything from the list above too