Generating diagrams for unfamiliar codebases using an AI skill Everyone who has worked in software has experience poring over multiple codebases trying to understand how all the different pieces of functionality interact. One of my first starter tasks when I joi...

Built a Claude skill in a codeathon that generates codebase diagrams from unfamiliar repos 🗺️

tldr: Claude is great at code structure, terrible at line numbers (like, off by hundreds), and subagents make a real difference for complex workflows

write-up here 👇
www.ericapisani.dev/generating-d...

Boundaries were weaker without existing structure to follow. My Cloudflare Worker defaulted to broad modules (`scraper.py`, `worker.py`), while the FastAPI app (where I'd seeded a structure) produced `services/change_detection_service.py`, `models/bill.py` etc.

Give Your AI Coding Assistant Something to Work With: A Case Study Over my winter break, I'd been noodling over a new side project idea related to Ontario politics. I used to enjoy following what goes on, but these days looking at news articles and reading the email...

✍️ New blog post: I built the same project twice to see how much initial structure affects AI coding assistant results.

Spoiler: quite a bit.

www.ericapisani.dev/give-your-ai-coding-assistant-something-to-work-with-a-case-study/

Developers Can Improve the ESG Aspects of Software By Tackling Early Ethical Debt Erica Pisani, host of the Performance and Sustainability track at QCon London 2025, reflects on lessons from assembling the track and from attending the talks. She touches on the importance of the env...

Had a great chat with Olimpiu Pop on the InfoQ podcast about hosting QCon London's "Performance and Sustainability" track and how developers can take small steps to improve software's environmental and social impact.

You can listen or read the transcript here: www.infoq.com/podcasts/dev... 🎧

Erica Pisani Sr. Software Engineer based out of Toronto, Canada. I write about things I learn and am curious about related to tech.

Just sent out my end-of-year newsletter with updates on what I've been working on - new blog posts, a side project idea focused on Ontario politics, and taking a look at self-hosting my git projects.

If you'd like to get updates like these in your inbox, you can subscribe at www.ericapisani.dev

What I learned from Anthropic's "Building with the Claude API" course I decided to take this course in order to get a high-level understanding of all the features that Claude had to offer, and a better understanding of how these services worked under the hood, as well a...

✍️ New blog post alert: What I learned from Anthropic's "Building with the Claude API" course

My biggest learnings from the course and what I'm excited to explore next.

www.ericapisani.dev/what-i-learn...

How I use AI Like so many others, I've been experimenting with a number of different AI-powered tools to find the ones that work best for my style of working and how I learn. For folks trying to get some ideas of...

✍️ New blog post alert: How I use AI

Still learning, but starting to see real benefits in my day-to-day work.

www.ericapisani.dev/how-i-use-ai/

Considering open sourcing software at your company? From what I've seen in my career so far, the motivation to open source software at one's company tends to fall into one or more of the following buckets of reasons: 1) As a way of giving back to the ...

Is your company considering open sourcing that internal tool? The answer on whether to or not depends on more than "is the code good enough?"

www.ericapisani.dev/considering-...

Discovered greenpt.ai and I'm excited to finally see a privacy-focused and environmentally conscious GPT provider out there 🤩

Building "My Local Grocer" This is a side project that I've been picking away at on-and-off for the past few years, and I'm finally at a place where I can say I'm "done". My Local Grocer was my attempt to make small mom-and-po...

Built my first side project in ages: a Toronto independent grocer finder! 🛒

Turns out parsing municipal data is tricky, but I had a blast working on something I actually wanted to use.

Can read more about it here: www.ericapisani.dev/building-my-...

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out!

A First-Timer’s Guide to Curating a Technical Conference Track One first-time track host shares the process, constraints, and takeaways from building a track from scratch at QCon London 2025.

Building a conference track? A new guide by Erica Pisani on #InfoQ shares lessons from hosting a track at #QConLondon.

💡 Pro tip: Start outreach months early & be upfront about speaker benefits (travel, etc.). It’s a game-changer.

Read the playbook: bit.ly/4feFxCH

Happy 40th! 🥳🎉🍻

#59 Debriefing Qcon Sustainability track with Erica Pisani How is sustainability covered in main tech conferences? Sure cybersecurity, DevOps, or anything related to SRE, is covered at length. Not to mention AI… But what room is left for the environmental i...

Joined Gaël Duez on the GreenIO podcast to chat about the track I hosted at @qconferences.com London this year, the tight relationship between performance and sustainability in software, and so much more! 🎙️

Episode is on all major platforms, and also here! ⬇️

podcast.greenio.tech/e/r8km95l8-5...

Reflections on "Performance and Sustainability" at QCon London 2025 I had the privilege of hosting the "Performance and Sustainability" track at QCon London this year. It was my first time hosting a track, and I was incredibly fortunate to have the following talented ...

Reflections on the "Performance and Sustainability" track that I hosted at @qconferences.com London this year:

www.ericapisani.dev/reflections-...

The efficiency paradox talk at QCon London

For those at @qconferences.com London 2025, come check out the last talk of the day in the Performance and Sustainability track up in Mountbatten - Holly Cummins' "The Efficiency Paradox"!

Sarah Hsu about to talk about observability and green software at QCon London 2025

Sarah Hsu introducing us to Green Observability at @qconferences.com London 2025 as part of the Performance and Sustainability track 🤩

Alex Good talking about local-first software at QCon London

Alex Good talking about how we can build build more local-first software - removing the high level of dependency that often exists in software today on centralized servers that are often outside of our control at @qconferences.com London 2025

Jade Abbott speaking at QCon London

"Sustainability means different things to different people"

Jade Abbott speaking about AI and sustainability at @qconferences.com London 2025 in the "Performance and Sustainability" track

Ludi Akue speaking about webpage optimization in the context of Green IT at QCon London 2025

"The frontend is the most overlooked area in Green IT"

One of the many valuable lessons shared by Ludi Akue in her talk as part of the "Performance and Sustainability" track at @qconferences.com #QConLondon2025

The 418 Issue #3 (PHYSICAL) - Etsy Australia This Zines item is sold by The418. Dispatched from Canada. Listed on 04 Mar, 2025

Issue 3 is out now! Visit our Etsy Store to get it, as well as issues 1 and 2!

www.etsy.com/ca/listing/1...

We are so excited to have you join our community. If you haven't already, head to the418.dev to sign up for our newsletter ❤️

Various software engineering themed stickers on a counter.

Thanks @dev.to for the wonderful stickers! ❤️

👀

QCon London 2025 | Performance and Sustainability in Practice: How to Make Software Greener Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies.

I'm excited to announce I'll be hosting the "Performance and Sustainability: How to make Software Greener" track at #QConLondon, April 7–11, 2025!

You can check out all the amazing speakers that will be a part of it here:

qconlondon.com/track/apr202...

Hope to see you there!

Living on the Edge • Erica Pisani • GOTO 2024 YouTube video by GOTO Conferences

Edge computing is more accessible than ever. Learn what it is, why it’s growing, and how to use it in your apps. Watch @ericapisani.dev's talk to explore the future of #EdgeComputing.
youtu.be/K6c29Gtlpjs?...

Any Gen Z podcast fans here?

I'm doing a research project on younger podcast fans, and I'm trying to get 100 responses to this survey:

forms.reform.app/pF4xrZ/podca...

(Feel free to pass it along to folks you know! 🙏)

A zine celebrating the vibrant souls of the tech industry

We're close to releasing issue #3, and if you're interested in following along on our journey, you can sign up for the zine's mailing list at the418.dev

We're also always looking for contributors for future articles, so if you're interested, feel free to reach out!

A zine celebrating the vibrant souls of the tech industry

For those new to @the418.bsky.social - it's a zine @burgerdev.bsky.social and I work on together with a theme of "what would folks who work in tech talk about over tea?"

Contains:
- thought-provoking articles from various authors ✍️;
- puzzles 🧩 ; and
- positive vibes 😎

@the418.bsky.social is officially migrated over to BSky! 🎉

The Copenhagen Catalog 150 principles for a new direction in tech - The principles were created by hundred and fifty humans in 48 hours at Techfestival in Copenhagen as the next step after The Copenhagen Letter.

TIL about "The Copenhagen Catalog" and I kind of want a poster of these.

Anyone know where I can find one (or even the ebook for it)?

Sadly, it looks like the original site no longer runs, but I found what it used to look like on the internet archive - web.archive.org/web/20180914...