DEV Community: The IT Ink Poet

What Happens When Software Syntax Becomes Poetry?

The IT Ink Poet — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 08:15:41 +0000

Software has its own language.

IF. THEN. ELSE.

GIVEN. WHEN. THEN.

WHILE.

We normally use those words to describe logic, behaviour and repetition. I started wondering what would happen if the same structures were used for something they were never designed for: poetry.

For example:

GIVEN a team that collaborates right,
WHEN a smooth deployment takes flight,
THEN new features deliver customer ______.

Or:

IF every pull request gets fresh eyes,
THEN code quality will steadily rise.
ELSE falling standards won't be a ______.

Then there is wordplay hiding inside technical language:

Good deSIGN is a sign of respect for the user.

The experiment gradually grew beyond a few programming jokes. Software engineering has plenty of material for poetry: flaky tests, technical debt, pull requests, deployments, retrospectives, ownership, team culture, AI, leadership, UX, quality, and the small absurdities of everyday engineering life.

The result became a collection called:

Poems, Puzzles & Proverbs for Tech
Rhyme, Wit & Wordplay, from Engineers to CEOs.

It includes IF-THEN-ELSE poems, Given-When-Then verses, rewritten sayings, hidden-word puzzles, longer poems, WHILE-loop pieces, and short observations about the craft.

I'm curious whether this format works for people who don't normally think of themselves as poetry readers. My aim was everyday language, recognisable engineering situations, and strong rhyme rather than literary complexity.

The Kindle edition is free for three days: Tuesday (25 Aug), Wednesday (26 Aug) and Thursday (27 Aug), based on Amazon's US Pacific Time promotion window.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGB3TYYT

If you take a look, I'd be interested in which format works best for you: conditional logic, BDD, hidden words, loops, or the longer poems.

Until the next commit...
The IT Ink Poet

History is written by browsers

The IT Ink Poet — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 05:12:12 +0000

They say history is written by the victors.
In the digital age, that’s no longer true.
History is written by browsers.
(And it reveals a lot more than we want to admit.)

The "Real" History Book

If future historians looked at your browser history from the last 24 hours, what would they conclude?
A. "This person is a genius researcher."
B. "This person has researched how to center a Div."
C. "This person is obsessed with mechanical keyboards."
D. "This person needs to go outside."

We all have our client_secrets.

The IT Ink Poet — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:37:27 +0000

"We all have our secrets."
In the engineering world we all have our client_secrets.

They sit quietly behind every login, every API call and every "it just works" moment. We rarely talk about them until something breaks.

A leaked string is a debt not paid yet. A weak token is an open invitation.

Hardcoding is a habit that leads to regret. A rotation strategy is what keeps the system stable.

True security is a baseline requirement not a luxury. "We all have our CLIENT secrets." The real challenge is making sure they stay that way.

What is one best practice you never compromise on when handling tokens?

AI is my other half

The IT Ink Poet — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 14:04:43 +0000

AI is my other half.

Not because it thinks for me.
Not because it replaces me.
But because it complements me.

I bring context.
AI brings speed.
I bring judgment.
AI brings scale.
I bring experience, intuition and responsibility.
AI brings pattern recognition, synthesis, and tireless assistance.
Neither side is complete on its own.

A calculator never replaced mathematics.
A GPS never replaced navigation.
A compiler never replaced programming.
Likewise, AI does not replace human capability.
It amplifies it.

The most interesting future may not belong to humans alone or machines alone.
It may belong to those who learn how to combine the strengths of both.

One side asks the questions.
The other helps explore the possibilities.
One side defines the destination.
The other helps map the routes.

Together, they create something neither could achieve as effectively alone.
AI is my other half.
Not my substitute.
My collaborator.

QA: booster, not blocker.🚀

The IT Ink Poet — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 07:08:45 +0000

QA: booster, not blocker. 🚀

People sometimes see QA as the reason a release slows down.
But QA is not a “show stopper.”
QA catches the showstoppers before they reach Production.

Because of that, the services keep running.
The users keep trusting.
And the show goes on.

Great QA teams are not slow.
They are thorough,
Letting the business run the show.

They don’t block delivery;
they protect delivery.

QA !== blocker of releases to Prod
QA === booster of quality, resilience and customer confidence

And QA is not a bottleneck either.
In fact, strong QA is what enables teams to celebrate smooth releases, stable deployments and successful launches, sometimes with actual champagne bottles. 🍾

The best releases are not the fastest ones.
They are the ones users never have to complain about.