Breaking Up With WordPress After Two Decades
Around Black Friday last November, I moved my website from SiteGround to Bluehost. This was not some ambitious infrastructure decision. SiteGround wanted roughly five times more...
Perspectives
Cross-domain essays on systems, incentives, behavior, and the mechanisms that shape outcomes.
The Dude
It was during my college years that I saw the Big Lebowski for the first time. Within days, my friends and I were calling each other “dude”. Living in Turkey, despite Englishspe...
Why Headcount Math Lies
In 1911, Frederick Winslow Taylor published and helped cement one of management’s oldest instincts. In simple terms, break work into measurable units, optimize for efficiency, a...
Escaping Status Theater
I still think about one migration project where everything was green until the final month. We did not have the luxury of extending the deadline. This was tied to external regul...
Incentives Drive Everything
In early modern France, the monarchy kept running into the same problem. Wars were expensive, revenue was not steady, and every obvious solution came with a political price. New...
Why Airport Security Feels Random
I’m about to take yet another flight, this time flying to India. I’m excited, but then I can’t seem to pass the thought of why the heck security checks are so random. I had to c...
Why Politics Appear
Ancient Athens did not solve uncertainty with better communication. They solved it by removing people. Once a year, citizens gathered to vote on exile. Not for crimes. Not for f...
The Janus Protocol
In the Roman Forum, there was a small shrine with double doors. When Rome was at war, the doors were left open. When Rome was at peace, the doors were closed. It is an oddly mod...
Why Kingdom of Heaven’s Director’s Cut Is Better
It was another lazy Sunday. And I like them at this point. You start to appreciate them more and more. I let YouTube’s algorithm land me on a few chess videos. Later, it pushed...
AI Broke Interviews
Interviewing has always been a big can of worms in the software industry. For years, big tech has gone with the LeetCode style questions mixed with a few behavioural and rounds....
Most of What We Call Progress
Most of what we call progress in software is just motion. New tools, new frameworks, same problems. Maybe fancier logos. Our industry always has this collective thrill that a ne...
Managers Have Been Vibe Coding All Along
Everyone’s been talking about vibe coding lately. I’ve been doing it myself. two projects. and . It’s the kind of work where you don’t analyze, architect, or overthink. You star...
Why Over-Engineering Happens
If you’ve worked in software long enough, you’ve probably seen it: a CRUD app serving a handful of users, deployed on a Kubernetes cluster with half the CNCF landscape stitched...
Prisoner's Dilemma
On September 3, 1949, a weather plane was flying over Japan. It detected traces of radioactive isotopes. These elements decay quickly, which means they had been created recently...
Climbing No More
Engineers have been reaching a common ceiling in their careers for decades. The pattern goes like this: an individual contributor gets promoted to a senior software engineer, an...
Mevlana Candy
When I was a child, Rumi wasn’t a philosopher or a poet for me. He was candy. Every once in a while, a relative from Konya would visit and bring Mevlana şekeri. The rock sugar a...
Brewing Turkish Tea
I love Turkish tea. If I go too long without it, especially while traveling, I start to miss it badly. It’s an addiction I have no intention of fixing. When I talk to nonTurkish...
Learning the Johari Window
When I wrote this piece on , I focused on the practical side: clarity, motivation, breaking down complexity. But here’s the thing. Even the clearest goal doesn't mean much if yo...
AI Balance in Work
I use AI, you use AI, and almost everyone uses AI. I don’t think that’s going to change. But how should we use it? I’ve seen people turn five bullet points into three pages — I...
Tech Hiring Bubble Bursts
I wasn’t around in the 90s, but people who were say it was incredible. If you could code, you were set. Talent was rare. There were almost everywhere. In the 2000s and early 201...
The Reality of an Employer's Market
Lately, Iʼve seen a lot of posts about what employers should do or how they should treat candidates, what benefits they should offer, and how they should run their interviews. I...
Bridging Ideals and Reality
Have you ever been in an engineering discussion where someone starts pointing out all the ideals and how much the company sucks? Complaining about all the mistakes the company m...
Why The Godfather Is So Damn Good
I recently stumbled upon The Godfather while scrolling through a movie list. I figured, why not take a peek? Well, that "peek" turned into watching the whole damn movie again. A...
No Fluff Please
I've seen countless socalled resume coaches who stuff resumes with flashy buzzwords like 'scalable' and 'fast.' It's all fluff, and it doesn't land real results. A truly impactf...
Perception vs Perspective
Have you ever found yourself questioning someone's decision, only to realize later that you didn't have the full picture? You know it's really easy to get caught up in our own w...
Setting Goals
One thing I've learned over the years is that humans naturally don't have a longterm mindset. Without clear goals, it's easy to lose track of what we want to achieve. Defining g...
Celebrating Our Book in Iceland
To celebrate the release of our new book, , Ender and I took a nice trip to Iceland. Here’s a relaxed recap of our fiveday journey. Day 1: The Golden Circle We kicked off our tr...
Charlie Munger Quotes
I got to know more about Charlie Munger in the last 10 years. His name came up with Berkshire. I knew he had been in the industry, but I wasn’t really into investing. I apprecia...
Confronting Life's Storms
Life isn't easy for anyone. Everyone finds themselves navigating through a series of unpredictable challenges. Our unique journeys get punctuated by challenges that test our res...
Winning Eleven
Here's 'Winning Eleven,' my own mix of eleven key ideas that have helped me grow both at work and in life. This isn't your usual list of tips. It's more like a collection of rea...
Kindness is A Choice
Discussing leadership, we often overlook kindness, focusing more on power and wealth. Yet in reality, the leaders who leave a lasting impact are the ones who choose humanity ove...
The Power of Consistency
One of my friends from primary school didn’t go to high school. At first, it was a bit surprising, but his family was making kebap, and he wanted to run the family business. Bec...
Embracing TikTok
I've had a TikTok account for a while. I was a passive scroller. But, today I made my first video based on . It's about how building a great team is like cooking a good meal. Yo...
Restful Sleep: The Ultimate Debugger
Coding can be tough. Even the best get stuck with tricky errors. But many forget one helpful trick: sleep. Software engineers often work late. We get so into our work, we think,...
Why Legacy Systems Are Worth Your Time
I know. When you hear legacy, you think , , weird edge cases, and “what the hell just broke now.” Every moment feels frustrating. You don’t know what the next change will trigge...
Life's Compounding Effect
The principle of compounding is a concept most often tethered to the world of finance. We understand it as the cycle where an investment earns interest, and then that interest e...
Quotes from Ali
Muhammad Ali was not just a boxing legend but also a social and cultural icon. He was known for his charismatic personality and his ability to use words as powerfully as he used...
Fusilli with Yogurt
I have liked the fusilli with yogurt since my college years. It's simple yet a very interesting combination. It takes a very little amount of time to prepare. It's delicious. Le...
Data as a Product is a Promise
Domaindriven design (DDD) has been around for quite a long time. In short, DDD focuses on domain to match domain requirements. One of the pillars of DDD is bounded context. A bo...
A Trip To My Village
I was born in a remote village in Turkey, in the northeastern province of Bayburt. It is called Gökçedere, named after the small river that divides the village into two parts. T...
Why Data Fails to Capture the Magic of Fenomeno
1998 World Cup. I was waiting for him to shine. I was not sleeping. I was waking up just to see matches. I was so excited. Every time Ronaldo had the ball, I had that feeling th...
Apple ve Gizlilik
Uzun zamandır Apple ürünleri kullanmama rağmen kimseye Apple ile ilgili tavsiye vermemiştim. Hatta uzun süre boyunca Apple ürünlerinin gereksiz pahalı olduğunu düşünüyordum. Lak...
Quotes from Mill
I first read John Stuart Mill's books when I was in college. He has some amazing quotes about freedom of speech. I just want to compile them in this post for myself and for anyo...
Missed Opportunities
Itʼs been a while and I havenʼt posted anything new on my blog. Life, work, and priorities often got in the way, but the urge to write never really went away. Itʼs time to get b...
Quotes from Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was a soldier, reformer, author, president, and founding father of Turkey. He has some amazing quotes. I compiled some of them for myself and anyone intere...
Firefox: Son Kale
Tarayıcı seçimi oldukça kişisel bir şey. İnsanlar, uzun süre bir tarayıcıyı kullanınca, ister istemez arada bir bağ kurmaktalar. Bu nedenle, birinin varsayılan tarayıcılarını de...
What's wrong with Agile Frameworks
Some time ago, I attended a course and became . It wasn’t a huge deal. I was already doing the job. But as time went on and I gained more experience, my view of agile frameworks...
The Real Work Is Social
I get along with people. I talk, I joke, I do the normal office stuff. But even with that, something about how work actually works has always felt off. You think the job is most...
Hype in Software Development
We live in a time when every month brings a new framework, library, or architectural pattern that promises to change everything. Increasingly often, we come across a new technol...
Yusuf'un Yeri
Dublin'de Türk yemeklerine ve kebaplarına erişim oldukça kısıtlı. Türkiye'de her köşe başında olan fırınlar ve kebapçılar burada zor bulunuyor. Bu özlemi giderebilmek için elimi...
Smaller is Faster
“Smaller is faster” is a wellknown hardware design principle, as you might already know it. Generally speaking, smaller pieces of hardware will be faster than larger ones becaus...
Shoulder Ship It
Pair programming is no new topic and has been widely used in the industry. At first, it might seem like itʼs a waste of time because two coders work in the same station. However...
Consistency Matters
When I look back at the projects I’ve worked on, the most peaceful moments were always when the code felt consistent. Everything lined up. Names made sense. Files looked familia...
Babalık Bağı
Baba olmak nasıl bir şey? Sorup da öğrenilemeyen bir şey. Aslında zaman ile kazanılan bir duygu. Belkide bir süreç. Babalık bebeğinizle kurduğunuz bağla ile başlar. Bu bağıda za...
Açık Kaynak Lisansları
Açık kaynaklı yazılımlar her geçen gün daha da yaygınlaşıyor. Artık herkes açık kaynaklı yazılımlarla karşılaşıyor, en basit örnek Android işletim sistemi. Bugün sadece bireysel...
Doğum Günü Kurabiyeleri
Her dakika 255 doğumun olduğu dünyamızda, herkes için doğum günlerinin ayrı bir önemi vardır. Ama bazen sizin için önemli olan bir kişinin doğum günü sizi daha çok heyecanlandır...
Linux mu Windows mu?
Aslında bayağıdır yazmıyordum sitede ama bir arkadaşın sorusu üzerine birkaç satır bir şeyler karalayayım dedim. Arkadaş bize Linux tabanlı işletim sistemlerinin avantaj ve deza...
HP Faciası
Yaklaşık 2.5 sene önce HP'nin Pavillion serisinin RP981EA modelindeki laptopunu satın almıştım. Çoğu HP Laptop kullanıcısının karşılaştığı sorunlarla ben de yüzleştim. Bunlardan...
24 Kasım
Kasım aylarının sonlarındaydı, artık kış geldiğini hissettiriyordu. Bayburt o gün az da olsa karlarla kaplıydı. Belkide erken yağan kar, soğuk bir kışın habercisiydi. Soğuk bir...
Google bugün internette bir şey aramak denince çoğu kişinin ilk girdiği yer. Hatta öyle bir hale geldi ki, bazen internet sanki Google’dan ibaretmiş gibi geliyor. Ama tabii işin...
Bilgisayar Tarihi
Bilgisayarın tarihi aslında sandığımızdan çok daha eskiye dayanıyor. Bugün masamızda duran ya da cebimize sığan cihazların bu hale gelmesi öyle bir anda olmamış. Arkasında yüzle...
Hoş Bir Gün
Sabah uyanmak istemezken saatin geldiğini görerek derse yetişme telaşı içinde yataktan kalkmak başlangıcıdır günün. Kahvaltı mı? Tabii ki hayır. Vakit yok ki kahvaltıya. Apar to...
0 veya 1
Hayat belkide 0 veya 1. Düz mantık olmalı herşey belkide. Olmak yada olmamak işte bütün mesele bu. Ya varsındır (1) ya da yoksundur (0). Ya bir yere gidersin ya da gitmezsin. Ya...
Programlama Dilleri Tarihi
Programlama dillerini ilk ciddi ciddi Bilkent Üniversitesi’ndeki derslerde görmüştüm. Programming Languages dersinde bayağı farklı şeylere dokunuyorduk. Genelde başlangıç Java i...