Software Engineering and articles

Renewing rafablanes.com: Astro, Cloudflare and a simpler website

I have completely rebuilt rafablanes.com, moving from Drupal to Astro and Cloudflare to create a simpler, more modern website that is ready for new content.

Why I still write by hand, sometimes

Why I still use pen and paper alongside digital tools: to learn, think clearly, and keep practicing the skills I want to preserve.

Thinking in Rust: the concepts that do not come from other languages

A reflection on the core concepts of Rust that change the mental model of the developer: ownership, borrowing, lifetimes, errors, and software design.

What I have learned with Bitcoin

A personal reflection on Bitcoin, money, inflation, technology, and the deep financial paradigm shift it is already triggering.

Sharpening the axe

Reflections on purpose, professional balance, and the importance of keeping technical skills sharp in order to maintain meaning in our work.

WebAssembly & Rust

WebAssembly and Rust are changing how we build high-performance, secure, portable, and scalable software.

Mantra

Mantra is a Node.js framework for building professional, large-scale, scalable applications with lower maintenance costs, decoupled components, and an architecture designed to minimize technical debt.

Bitcoin: a new book

A practical guide to understanding Bitcoin, digital money, and the financial revolution that is reshaping our relationship with money.

Applications as frameworks

Many applications do not only need good practices and architecture; they also benefit from abstracting business logic into an internal framework that allows evolution with less cost and more speed.

The notes from The Black Book of the Programmer

The quotes and phrases most highlighted by readers of The Black Book of the Programmer reveal which ideas resonate most with those who work in software and want to improve professionally.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Programming (Volume 1)

The first volume of the book that compiles the most relevant articles on professional growth, habits, and software development is now available.

The code does not tell the whole story

Understanding a software project is not only a matter of reading the code: decisions, context, architecture, non-functional requirements, and documentation explain why the system was built the way it is.