Beyond code

Everything I care about outside programming.

Code takes up most of my day, but not all of it. Outside it I play chess, listen to techno and neoclassical, pick up more languages, draw in notebooks and write short stories. I wrote a short book about each of them, and they all sit on the shelf below. Further down is what I am listening to right now, my short fiction and the desk where all of it gets made.

The library

Books about what I do and why. Pull one off the shelf.

Contents

  1. Coding I got into tech in 2020 - started with simple static sites, nothing serious.
  2. Graphic Design I got into design about a year ago.
  3. Game Development I've wanted to make my own game since I was a kid. The gap between "I could build this" and "I'm actually building this" has been closing for a while.
  4. Music I care about music that has something to say. Not music for music's sake - something that earns its place, that you can feel before you understand it.
  5. Writing I want to write books. In the meantime I write short pieces - drafts that live in a notebook and go nowhere public.
  6. Chess I don't know theory. Never played seriously until the start of 2026 - and then got banned several times for cheating.
  7. Philosophy Are you sure you want to know?
  8. Streaming I want to stream. I tried once, years ago - gaming content, nothing serious. This time would be different.
  9. Languages Polish from birth. English I picked up during the remote years - it became fluent fast, because everything I was reading and watching was in English anyway.
♜♞♝♛♚♝♞♜♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♟♜♞♝♛♚♝♞♜

e5Morphy - Brunswick & Isouard, Paris 1858

An interest - chess

The one game where a loss can be replayed move by move until the exact point it started is sitting there on the board.

I play with no rating ambitions. What keeps me there are the positions where somebody hands over a piece because they counted five moves further than the opponent - five games built on exactly that are replaying here.

The whole story is in the chess book

What I'm listening to

Spotify builds this list from the tracks I have been playing most lately, so it changes as I do. Next to it, a new track from the list comes up every 5 seconds.

Track 1 of 30

Genius (feat. Sia, Diplo, and Labrinth)

Sia, Diplo, Labrinth, LSD 3:34

Listen on Spotify Full playlist on Spotify

30 tracks, 1 hr 44 min in total.

The whole list. Click a cover to open the track on Spotify.

Short fiction

Short stories I write in my spare time. Mostly psychological and on the darker side.

  1. 135 words Sample text

    The hallway mirror

    The mirror in the hallway was always half a second late. Nobody else saw it, so I stopped bringing it up.

  2. 127 words Sample text

    Room twelve

    The hotel had no room twelve. Eleven was followed straight by thirteen, and the receptionist smiled as if the question were rude.

At the desk

This is roughly the place where almost everything on this site gets made. Hover over something, or wait for the desk to walk you through it.

1 / 9

Monitor with the editor

The main screen belongs to code. The editor fills all of it, because with several files open at once every column of text counts.

Monitor with the preview

Next to it the result shows up right away: the site or app reloads on every save. Documentation lives here too when I am looking something up.

Computer

It stands next to the desk and does the heavy lifting: builds, virtual machines, containers. Glass side, because I like seeing that something is spinning.

Laptop

A terminal on the side and the machine for travelling. When I am away from the desk, the work comes with me.

Tablet with a stylus

For sketching logos and interfaces before they go into a design tool. A stylus is closer to a notebook than a mouse is.

Headphones

Closed-back, to shut the rest of the world out. Whatever spins on the turntable above plays through these.

Microphone on an arm

For calls and recordings, and one day for streams. The arm swings it out of the way when it is not needed.

Lamp

Warm light for late hours, so the monitor is not the only thing glowing in the room.

Mug

A fixture of every longer session. What is inside depends on the time of day.

Ask me about...

A few questions someone might ask me, with short answers. The longer versions sit on the shelf above.

How did you get into programming?

With simple static sites in 2020, nothing serious. Around 2022-2023 I started building real websites, and since 2024 I have been writing full software: fullstack apps, desktop tools, bots, scripts and automations.

Which language do you like writing in most?

I do not commit to one. I write TypeScript, Rust, Go, PHP, C#, C and C++, and I recently started picking up Lua. Right tool for the job, and that is it.

How good are you at chess?

I do not know theory, and I only started playing seriously at the start of 2026. Right now I am at 2250 in blitz, 2050 in rapid and 1200 in bullet, which is low exactly because bullet rewards theory. My puzzle rating sits around 1900.

Are you making your own game?

Yes. The first real project is Lunatic Chess: heavily modified chess with custom pieces, mechanics, maps and a multiplayer server. Further out is Oblivion, a multiplayer first-person horror shooter, and in the meantime I write plugins for SCP: Secret Laboratory and Minecraft.

What do you listen to?

Mostly techno and neoclassical. What they share is texture over melody and atmosphere over catchiness. If I composed something myself, it would lean neoclassical.

How many languages do you speak?

Polish from birth, English fluently since the remote years. I got Serbian and German to a basic level around 2023, and Spanish came in 2024-2025. Waiting on the list: French, Italian, Russian, Greek, Latin and Turkish.

Do you write anything besides code?

I want to write books one day. For now it is short stories, mostly psychological, and those go into the Short fiction section above.

When will you start streaming?

After I move, so somewhere in the next year. The idea is a community around everything I do: code, design, writing, game development, chess or just talking.

Your question is not here? Ask me on Discord

The technical side, how I think, the path here and what I write in, lives under About and Stack.