Stop Copy-Pasting Your Resumé (and Everything Else)

You just got asked for an updated resumé. Again. So you open that folder—one in Google Drive, another buried in Downloads, and maybe another one in your email. There’s a version from three jobs ago, one you tweaked last year… and they’re all a mess.

But what if your resumé lived in source control? Versioned. Clean. Written in plain text. Ready to export to PDF in seconds.

That same approach works for more than just your own documents. When I’m hiring developers, I use AsciiDoc to generate technical assessments too—polished, structured PDFs without fiddling in Word. And once it’s generated, it’s automatically uploaded to the Confluence page for our hiring process, so recruiters and interviewers always get the latest version—without needing to ask.

In this post, I’ll show you how I use AsciiDoc to create reusable documents—like resumés, cover letters, and candidate assessments—that compile into beautiful, consistent PDFs in seconds. No CI/CD pipeline required - but you can absolutely add one later to automate PDF generation and publishing. Just structured content, a simple setup, and the joy of never formatting by hand again.

Testing GraphQL with Specifications: A Deep Dive with Reqnroll

GraphQL has been around since 2012, yet many developers haven’t had the chance to work with it. Personally, I’ve been using GraphQL on and off for several years, both in personal and professional projects. Recently, I’ve been diving deeper into it again—and I’ve fallen in love with it all over.

While implementing a few queries and mutations, I started to wonder: how could I effectively test my GraphQL implementation? Specifically, how could I send queries and mutations with a GraphQL client directly from my tests to ensure everything works as expected?

After some experimentation, I found a solution I’m excited to share: combining specifications with Reqnroll, the .NET WebApplicationFactory, and the Strawberry Shake GraphQL client to test a Hot Chocolate GraphQL server. This approach not only works seamlessly but also results in clean, readable specifications.

In this article, I’ll guide you through the process of setting up these tests, allowing you to test your own GraphQL server with clarity and confidence. Let’s get started!

DevOpsDays Eindhoven 2023

It was on my radar last year, but I decided not to go, but to go to Techorama instead. But, after hearing good stories about the first edition of the DevOpsDays Eindhoven, I decided to skip Techorama and go to the DevOpsDays Eindhoven 2023.

In this post, I will explain what the DevOpsDays are, and share some of my learnings. I hope you will enjoy it and, maybe, I might inspire you to join me next year!

Better Value Sooner Safer Happier, a review

Yesterday, I attended a session, presented by Jonathan Smart, on the topic of “Better Value Sooner Safer Happier” which was based on his book “Sooner Safer Happier”. The author’s approach is based on Lean, Agile, and DevOps principles, which have been adopted by many organizations worldwide, but with a strong focus on outcome, not on any process like Scrum, DevOps or Scaled Agile. In this review, I will share my key takeaways, I will not share his full talk, you can read the book and find some videos online.

My favorite books in 2022

My Goodreads 2022 reading list shows exactly 50 books this year. I did not break my record for the number of books (52, in 2017), but the amount of pages, 15.248, is definitely a record. Although reading is not about breaking records, spending time on a hobby is something that requires dedication and I am proud of my reading achievement. In this post, I will share my favorite, work-related books of 2022.

Advent of Code 2022: Learning Rust

Getting to the end of the year, you know it will be that time again: Advent of Code time! Starting on the first of December, up until Christmas, there will be a daily programming challenge. Last year I did an attempt to learn F#, which was not really successful. The combination of learning a new language and it being the first year I really participated in Advent of Code was just too much and after a few days I switched back to C#.

This year I wanted to skip it at all, but in November I decided to have a look at Rust and I got hooked. I looked for an IDE (more about that later), read a book and some documentation, did some of my favorite kata’s, and there it went wrong: I decided to solve some puzzles of Advent of Code 2021 and I decided to join this year’s edition again, with a goal: to learn Rust.