William Gant

"Exploring Java I/O �� A simple program to write string data into a text file using FileOutputStream. Clean, efficient, and a reminder of how core concepts form the backbone of every advanced system we build."

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Ever had those moments where a single line of code throws you into the deep end? That was me, knee-deep in Laravel, battling an API response issue for hours. In the thick of developing a feature for our user management system, I decided to leverage Laravel's API Resources to transform and shape the JSON response of our user models elegantly. It's supposed to be straightforward, right? Well, not this time. After meticulously setting up my API Resource, eager to see the beautifully transformed JSON, I hit refresh. And there it was, staring back at me — the same, untransformed JSON. I double-checked my Resource, scrutinized every relation defined in my eloquent model, and ensured the route was hitting the correct controller method. Everything seemed perfect. Or so I thought. The turning point? Middleware. In my tunnel-vision focus on the API Resource and eloquent models, I completely overlooked the middleware that was caching API responses. The cache was serving stale data, completely bypassing my new, shiny API Resource transformation logic. The face-palm moment wasn't just realizing the oversight but acknowledging how often the simplest solutions elude us amidst complex architectures. After invalidating the cache for the specific route, the transformed JSON response graced my screen — a moment of pure, unadulterated relief. The lesson here? Never underestimate the impact of middleware in your application flow. It’s not just about crafting the perfect eloquent query or mastering the art of API Resources; it's also about understanding every layer that your request touches, including those inconspicuous middleware layers. Ever found yourself overlooking something as foundational as middleware in the heat of development? How did it reshape your debugging approach? #Laravel #WebDevelopment #Middleware #Debugging #APIResources

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For those working outside of the software industry, here’s some practical advice for the coming 1–5 years. Yes, everything is going to change 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 quickly, but the good news is that you can prepare for it. (Why am I qualified to tell you this? Read on!). Imagine a new coworker. Book smart, a fast learner, an expert in your field— but critically, from outside your company. They show up at your desk unannounced, waiting for your instructions. How quickly would you be able to onboard this coworker? Would you need to explain where to find every single file on the network, or worse, would they need to read a company manual that your predecessor printed out for you 15 years ago? How difficult would it be to get your new coworker to perform small tasks, with little or no input from you? You may have guessed: AI is your new coworker. And if it takes weeks or months for a ‘human’ coworker to understand how you work, you won’t be able to get AI to do anything useful either. 1. ‘That’s great!’, you say, ‘AI won’t take over my job.’ → Yes, but, if people in the same role at your competitor’s workplace 𝗱𝗼 manage to figure out how to get more done with AI, your boss/shareholder will demand the same. At that point, it's your company on the line. 2. ‘My work is too difficult for AI’ → This is where the coworker metaphor is helpful. What does AI already know about your industry? You can find this out right now, from ChatGPT or Claude: ‘As an X working in the Y industry, how would I…?’. The rest can perhaps be documented (in Word or Excel): your company’s structure, digital landscape, secret sauce, and so on. You can start that today, just for yourself. 3. ‘I use so many different programs, how can ChatGPT replace me?’ → Ah, but the AI industry has moved on, and it all happened very fast. AI ‘agents’ are pieces of software that can use tools just like you do. They read and write files in different formats, and access outside information (like meeting notes, or records in your CRM system), all in the background. They reason about how to connect the dots, and can ask for your input, going back and forth to produce the same deliverables as you would have on your own— but faster. It’s exactly these agents that will allow AI to change ‘knowledge work’ as we know it. As a software developer with a bit of business sense, I can already envision what this would look like, as a piece of software to manage your work, right on 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 desktop. And guess who will build this for you? Software developers, like me. Or rather, our super fast agents. It’s software, producing software, that talks to software, ready to take on whatever work you are 𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺. This is being developed right now. Are you ready? Your new coworker will be, very soon! #Agentic #AI #FutureOfWork #KnowledgeWork #Software #SoftwareEngineering

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I’m re-reading my bookshelf this month and Terrence Ryan’s Driving Technical Change still hits home. When you're trying to move a team forward during transformational times, the biggest hurdles aren't technical and technology based, they're people based. Ever feel like your best ideas hit a wall? Usually, it's the team dynamics, not the idea itself. The key is recognizing the Skeptic Patterns: - The Burned: Wary because of past failed rollouts. - The Herd: Waiting for everyone else to move first. - The Time Crunched: Too overwhelmed to see the long-term value. .... more inside the book. "Understanding your team is just as important as the technology itself." #TechnicalChange #TeamDynamics #Leadership #TechCulture

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Developer Experience is not just "nice to have" Many teams/products overlook Developer Experience, and it quietly costs them speed, quality, and morale. Its the difference between: 1) Weeks vs days to ship features 2) Frustrations vs flow 3) Attrition vs Innovation When we design architectures, tools, or processes, we’re not just building for users. We are also building for the people who build for users. here’s how we can improve this: 1) Treat internal developer workflows with the same priority and care as customer-facing experiences 2) Invest in tooling, documentation, and clarity 3) Focus on “time to joy”, which in turn reduces “time to market” Because when developers thrive, products shine. #EngineeringLeadership #TechLeadership #EngineeringCulture #SoftwareEngineering

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So interesting... the sample size is small, so we'll see how other studies present, but this article suggests that AI coding assistants don't make us much faster. There's some data in here that suggests they do if you are practiced with them, but 30% more, not even 100% more (2x). In my experience AI can get new ideas bootstrapped quickly but it starts to get confused with the code base gets larger. It requires developer skill to get more out of it. For existing or large codebases, you need to focus it with good requirements documents and let it go in "agent" mode. I think our workflows need to change as these tools evolve to make best use of them. https://lnkd.in/gwUTBehz

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Is .NET still relevant in 2026? Short answer: absolutely. Despite the industry’s constant “flavor of the month” frameworks, .NET continues to dominate enterprise technology and it’s not slowing down. What stands out to me as a recruiter in the Software Engineering space: 🚀 Performance: ASP.NET Core consistently ranks among the fastest web frameworks 🌍 Cross-platform: One codebase across Windows, Linux, and macOS ☁️ Cloud-native & AI-ready: Strong alignment with Azure, microservices, and AI/ML use cases 🏢 Enterprise trust: Many global organizations still run mission-critical systems on .NET With ongoing innovation (including .NET 9 and 10), Microsoft has made it clear that .NET isn’t legacy, it’s strategic. From a hiring standpoint, this explains why experienced .NET developers remain in high demand across cloud, AI, modernization and enterprise transformation projects. If you’re a .NET engineer thinking about your next move or a business investing in future-proof tech, this is a space worth paying attention to. Excellent article on the above here: https://lnkd.in/dAHQGG-D #TechRecruitment #SoftwareEngineering #EnterpriseTech #HiringTrends #CloudDevelopment #AIEngineering

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I’ve been hearing some spicy takes on vibe coding lately and one of them actually stopped me mid-scroll. “Vibe coding is just like Python. It’s another abstraction layer built on the foundation those before us laid down.” Is that right? Could it really be that simple? When Python emerged, purists pushed back. “Real engineers write C.” “You don’t know what’s happening under the hood.” Sound familiar? But is abstraction just how our industry evolves? Is every layer we add a force multiplier, letting engineers operate at a higher level, solve bigger problems, and move faster? Maybe vibe coding isn’t the death of engineering craft. Maybe it’s just the next rung on the ladder? Did the floor disappear when Python took off? You still needed to understand systems, architecture, and failure modes. Will the same hold true here? So the question isn’t “should I use it?”, it’s “are you building the judgment to use it well?” Curious where you all stand. Are you embracing vibe coding, or still skeptical? Drop your take below. 👇 #NetDevOps #NetworkAutomation #VibeCoding #AI #InfrastructureAsCode #Engineering

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The .NET Dev shortage is real, but not in the way you might think. “We’ve had a .NET role open for weeks now. 100+ applicants. Still no one who fits.” Does this story sound familiar? The issue? You're likely not just hiring a developer. You more than likely need an engineer who can: ✅ Write clean C# ✅ Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines ✅ Automate testing with Playwright ✅ Handle infra as code in Azure Whilst that's partly a dev, it's also a DevOps-literate, automation-first engineer. With the help of our CDX talent mapping, the numbers back it up: Plenty of .NET engineers on the market BUT those who can truly scale a modern platform are still in short supply. That's not a hiring gap, it’s a capability gap. ➡️ If you’re building for AI, stop hiring for tools. Start hiring for the mindset. Engineers who can think in systems. Who design for scale, not just ship features. Who automate not just to save time, but to remove friction at every layer. That’s what moves thing along and helps you scale? Have you been seeing this shortage yourself?

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Ever worked with someone people called a “10x developer”? Yeah, me too. Fast, sharp, knows their tools like a pro. But here’s the thing: 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗹𝗲. The folks who make teams great? They usually look like this:  • The dev who leaves better comments than code 🧠  • The one who notices when someone’s stuck and 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘴  • The person who quietly improves that flaky CI job no one wants to touch  • The PM who clears blockers without making it a thing These aren't flashy wins. No dashboards. No applause. But they’re the reason stuff 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱𝘴. I’ve seen brilliant engineers burn out entire teams because they wouldn’t review a PR unless it was “perfect”. And I’ve seen quiet teammates completely change a team’s velocity by being reliable, humble, and curious. 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 > 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗺𝘆𝘁𝗵𝘀. Let’s stop chasing “10x” and start noticing the people who make others 2x better. 💬 What’s one thing someone on your team did that made 𝘺𝘰𝘶 better? #EngineeringCulture #TechLeadership #DevLife #TeamWork #SoftwareDevelopment #GrowthMindset

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It's stunning to me that people still don't seem to understand that as you move forward with a plan, you may be introduced to new information that calls parts of the plan or the plan itself into question. And when you come to them with, "Hey, we learned some things along the way, and now we need to re-evaluate," they can... well... freak out. Fair: Part of the problem could be in how you deliver the news. But regardless of the phrasing or gentleness with which you convey your message, it can still be jarring to people. So, how do you handle people who don't understand that even the best-laid plans can be waylaid by new information? First, be empathetic and curious. There may be circumstances of which you're unaware, or some context you don't have that's outside the scope of what you're working on. Try to understand what they're feeling and how they're reacting. You may be interpreting their reaction as anger or disappointment when, in reality, they are just surprised. Or there could be some implications of this new information that you don't immediately grasp. Second, share what you've learned and remember your audience. Keep it at the right level. If you're speaking to other domain experts, get into the nitty-gritty; if you're speaking to someone outside your domain, make your explanation detailed enough and in terms they can understand. Lastly, before you blow things up, make sure you can articulate the next steps. If you come forward with no course correction, people are likely to panic. Share updates freely and frequently. Communication becomes significantly more important. What may have been weekly status updates may need to become daily status updates until the train is back on the tracks.

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𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗙𝗶𝘅 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝘂𝗚𝗲𝘁 𝟰𝟬𝟭 𝗨𝗻𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗘𝗿𝗿𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗘𝗻𝘃𝗶𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 It seems simple, but this trick has saved me a lot of time in corporate environments. Well if you're in a corporate environment using private NuGet feeds, you've probably seen this: you try to run Update-Database or just build your project, and BAM! HTTP 401 Unauthorized. But if you use a public package, it works fine. This usually happens because of a bad cached credential. After hitting this wall a few times, I found two simple ways to fix it without messing with nuget.config files or PATs. Here are my go-to solutions for when this happens on Windows. ✅ 𝘚𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝟣: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 "𝘑𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘓𝘰𝘨 𝘐𝘯 𝘈𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯" f𝘪𝘹 This is the quickest fix. The .NET CLI has a flag that forces a fresh login prompt, ignoring any old, cached tokens. In your terminal or Visual Studio's Package Manager Console, just run: ┌───────────── │ dotnet restore --interactive └───────────── A browser window will pop up asking you to log in. Sign in with your corporate account, and you're done. Your new token is cached, and your commands should work now. ✅ 𝘖𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝟤: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 "𝘕𝘶𝘬𝘦 𝘐𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘖𝘳𝘣𝘪𝘵" f𝘪𝘹 Sometimes, the old credential is saved deep in Windows itself. You need to delete it manually. >Hit the Windows key and type "Credential Manager". >Go to "Windows Credentials". >Under "Generic Credentials", find the entry for your company's package source (look for URLs like pkgs.dev.azure.com or anything with VSCredentials). >Click on it and hit "Remove". >Restart Visual Studio. The next time you build or restore, it will prompt you for a fresh login. That's it. Nine times out of ten, one of these two methods gets me back to coding. Hope it helps you too.

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I always see this thing where people compare junior devs to senior devs - usually in a comical or condescending way. One thing is that there is no agreed upon standard for becoming a senior dev. There's no test that someone can take to prove that they are a senior dev. It's a pretty wonky thing I think: "I've been employed in the industry for 4 or 5 years, I'm a senior dev!" I've worked with some senior devs who are honestly not super impressive to work with. I think it's like driving a little bit, your grandma or grandpa may have been driving for 60 years but it's still not an entirely comfortable experience, having them drive you somewhere. To excel, you have to push yourself. I have a background in athletics and I look up to a lot of young athletes like Arda Guler or Lamine Yamal. Experience alone is never enough to keep you at a high level with respect to your craft. That goes for everything, including programming and software development.

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Why is most software nowadays terrible? Slow, buggy, alert ridden, confusing, ugly UIs... ...this wasn't how I imagined software turning out when I was 14. And yet... ...most low risk bugs are met with apathy from business folk. Slow apps are tolerated. Confusing UIs are accepted. And most of all? Work is broken down into tens or hundreds of tiny silos, all mediated by PRs, discouraging CI, masses of context switching, time wasted writing comments instead of having a discussion. And this makes every problem a lot worse.

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I'd like to see a Venn diagram of developers who "just want to write code" and developers who hate being told what code to write. Hang on. I think I found one... Oh, wait. My mistake. That's a Venn diagram of developers who think unit testing is a waste of time and developers who push code that doesn't even compile. Easy to get those two mixed up.

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This is precisely what I expected and have mentioned in a prior post... somewhere. I'm not sure why some are surprised by this. We know that AI companies have been losing money. We know this is not sustainable. We also have loads of other examples of the bait, hook, and raise prices tactic. (One only needs to look at their own streaming subscriptions and their ballooning bills, along with *ads* being added.) AI is not a magical replacement for people. Even if it were, do you really want to let another company dictate what your AI employee's salary is without you having any say? Do you want to always be guessing if your next quarter will be profitable, in spite of rapid growth and adoption of your product? Do you really want to be part of the pyramid scheme in which costs for services will inevitably trickle down and only those on the very top will win?

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