Jose Arcani

I came from an electronics engineering background and taught myself web development through books, FreeCodeCamp, and Udemy. Here are three things that would have saved me time.

1. Build things before you feel ready​

Tutorials feel productive, but you only really learn when you get stuck on your own project. My first MERN app was messy — and that's exactly why it taught me more than any course.

2. Learn debugging, not just coding​

Knowing how to read stack traces, use breakpoints, and isolate problems is more valuable than memorizing syntax. This skill compounds over time.

3. Pick a stack and go deep​

I spent months jumping between frameworks. Progress came when I committed to the MERN/PERN stacks and built real projects with them. Breadth comes later.

Setting up a consistent dev environment across machines can be frustrating. Here's how I containerize my .NET APIs so the setup is just docker compose up.

I've been meaning to build a personal site for a while. A place to share what I learn, document solutions I keep coming back to, and keep track of projects I'm working on.

As a backend developer, most of my work lives in terminals, APIs, and databases — not exactly the most visual stuff. But writing about it forces me to understand things better, and if someone else finds it useful, even better.

This site is built with Docusaurus and hosted on GitHub Pages. I plan to use the blog for longer posts and reflections, the Notes section for quick references, and Gists for reusable code snippets.

If you want to connect, find me on GitHub or LinkedIn.