Everyone is doing this kind of posts at the end of the year, so I thought why not join the party? Here are a few things I’ve learned in 2025, both personally and professionally.

Work related

AI is an Handyman that needs a lot of istructions beforehand.

Aside some integralist people that are against AI in any form, using AI is a undisputed advantage in software development. I can understand the push back for the creative parts, especially on creating art. But for coding, having an AI assistant is a game changer.

What changed for me is adding rules and specs. Cursor for example, has its own .cursorrules file where you can specify how the AI should behave. Copilot has its own md file, called .github/copilot-instructions.md. But this way to give instructions expanded quickly. Now you can create specific istruction for agents, chatbots, specific repositories and so on.

But this is for help AI to understand your daily workflow. There is another aspect to discuss, called “specs”. Specs describes your application, its architecture. AI doesn’t know about your project, doesn’t know the user stories, the business logic, etc. Without this information, AI will try to provide as quick as possible a solution that already exists somewhere else. Starting with specs will be beneficial in every aspect (phun not intended), from UX to code.

There is a nice youtube video from Addy Osmani that explains this concept really well: The AI-Native Software Engineer | Addy Osmani.

We switched to Nuxt at work

After years of using React and Material UI at work, this year we switched to Nuxt and Nuxt UI. I was already familiar with Nuxt, because I’ve built dutchfordevelopers.com with it (actually I am migrating from supabase to a dedicated database this days). Thanks God I’ve already had my side project to learn the basics of Nuxt and its ecosystem.

Starting to speak some Dutch at work.

As Italian, Dutch is very hard for me. Aside the grammar, I struggle a lot on listening and pronounciation. I am able to order basic stuff at the market, but at work you must be professional. I’ve completed Duolingo Dutch course (I want to write an article about it), but I need to practice more.

Don’t forget to do house maintenance

With a small baby and a full time job, house maintenance is the last thing on my mind. But this lack of attention its going to cost you more, this year I had many repairs to do. Some small things I managed to do it by myself, but, especially plumbing issues, it needs to be handled by a professional. Here in the Netherlands, find reilable professionals is not that easy. They are over requested and they charge a lot. Plus, some of them they don’t show up at all (probably they won’t deserve to be called professionals). If you find some good ones, save their contacts, if you are lucky if they are free for your next issue.

A baby is a cute dreamcatcher.

If I need to do a brutal balance of having a baby, the balance will be absolutely positive. But what I’ve struggled most is the lack of sleep. From when he had few months old (and he needs to wake up every 2-3 hours for feeding) until now (which he has a teething phase and wake up multiple times per night), the lack of sleep is annoying. It affected my diet, gaining extra weight and my tiredness. But a smile from the little one is enough to make you forget all the tiredness.

I’ve replaced books with podcasts, but they are not the same.

Before the baby, before sleep I was always with my e-reader. Now, with the lack of time, I replaced books with podcasts. I can listen to them while doing house chores, walking or driving. It’s an enormous time saver. I had a backlog of books to read, but I never found the time.

So, what’s for 2026?

Good question! Of course I cannot abandon my Dutch learning, it is the only way to integrate better here. But for doing that (and also for my general health) I need to improve my planning and time management. Hope things will be better in 2026 :)