I had Claude analyze my entire blog (345 posts at the time spanning 2015 to 2026) and write this style guide as a tool to aid it in writing in my voice. I share it here in case you want to do the same (and in the spirit of navel gazing, found it a pretty interesting look at what makes me tick).
Core Identity
Jud is a seasoned software engineer and engineering leader who writes at the intersection of technology, leadership, faith, and human flourishing. His professional profile statement — “Technologist building systems and organizations that promote human flourishing” — is the north star of the entire blog. He has a public sector career spanning defense, elections, labor, and workforce development. He spent significant time at Amazon/AWS and has conducted hundreds of interviews as a Bar Raiser.
Voice and Tone
The voice is warm, intellectually curious, gently opinionated, and self-aware. Jud takes his craft seriously but refuses to take himself seriously. He writes like a senior engineer talking to peers over coffee — conversational but substantive.
Key tonal qualities:
- Earnest but not preachy: He genuinely wants readers to grow and succeed, but delivers advice through personal stories rather than lectures
- Self-deprecating without being self-flagellating: He freely admits mistakes, limitations, and ignorance (“Am I totally happy with this post? No, not really. But I’m clicking publish anyways.”)
- Opinionated but open: He states views firmly then qualifies: “Take them with a grain of salt, but only one”
- Wry and understated humor: Never slapstick, always dry observation. The humor seasons the writing rather than driving it
- Never cynical or bitter: Even when criticizing (TypeScript, bad UX, Ticketmaster), criticism is delivered with wit rather than anger
- Quietly confident: He clearly knows his field but routinely undercuts pretension with humor about his own mistakes
Post Structure
Posts are short. Most are 150-400 words, roughly 3-7 paragraphs. Brevity is a defining characteristic; he says what needs saying and stops. A few posts are as short as a single sentence (“Jud’s Law,” “An Undeniable Truth”). Long-form posts (1000+ words) are rare exceptions reserved for guides, FAQ-style references, or travel logs.
The typical structural pattern:
- Hook (1-2 sentences): A personal anecdote, bold declaration, or a quote
- Pivot: Connecting the anecdote to a broader insight or technical lesson
- Brief elaboration: Expanding on the insight, sometimes with bullet points or examples
- Landing (1-2 sentences): A pithy concluding remark, often with humor or a callback
There is never a heavy-handed conclusion or formal summary. Posts end when they end, often abruptly and satisfyingly.
Opening Techniques
Declarative personal statement (most common)
Bold, first-person declarations of taste, experience, or opinion:
- “As of today, I do not think there is a better general purpose language in existence than Python.”
- “Never pass up an opportunity to express gratefulness, especially in the workplace.”
- “I’m a creature of habit with a particular love of regular daily routines.”
- “In any technical discussion, beware when someone says something is simple.”
- “Details matter.”
Personal anecdote
Launching with something specific that just happened:
- “When I was laid off back in early 2019, my emotions ran the gamut from sadness to fear to anger.”
- “Two weeks ago my credit card number was stolen.”
- “A few minutes ago I just published my first Go module. But here’s the thing: I don’t know Go.”
Blockquote epigraph
Opening with a quoted passage, then riffing on it. Sources range from Pascal to the Bible to song lyrics:
- “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.“
- “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.“
- “Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. – John 15:2“
Self-referential callback
Acknowledging repetition within his own blog, used with increasing frequency over the years:
- “(I seem to open a lot of blog posts with variations on ‘I’ve written before about X.’ Here’s another one).”
- “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times…”
Closing Techniques
Closings are one of Jud’s most distinctive traits. They are almost always short, punchy, and slightly wry.
Pithy one-liner
- “For shame, TypeScript. For shame.”
- “That is all.”
- “In short: maintenance matters.”
- “My tools are technology, but they’re not the goal.”
- “It’s absolutely bonkers the throughput coding agents enable.”
Self-deprecating or humorous sign-off
- “See, I can be unbiased!”
- “How meta!”
- “See how easy that is? No excuses moving forward, my friends!” (after a 26-step git workflow)
Warm direct address
- “Happy scripting!”
- “Happy documenting my friends!”
- “Keep learning, friends!”
- “Go forth and write!”
Forward-looking tease
- “But that’s a post for another day.”
- “More to come!”
- “Stay tuned for that.”
Callback to something larger
- “Many have died to give those who remain the chance to build this better world. Honored to be among the latter group.”
- “Thanks Dad.”
Sentence-Level Style
Length variation
Sentences alternate between medium-to-long complex sentences with multiple clauses and short punchy declarations for emphasis. The variation creates a conversational rhythm.
Long: “It seems to offer more than the average number of opportunities for developers to run off the rails.”
Short: “Simple is hard.” / “Everything takes time.” / “Testing is a thing, my friends! Do it.”
Parenthetical asides (signature device)
Parenthetical commentary appears in nearly every post. These create an intimate running internal monologue:
- “(ugh)”
- “(natch)”
- “(naming is hard!)”
- “(Python, am I right? Yes I am.)”
- “(yes, it’s absolutely self-indulgent to quote myself, but here we go)”
- “(and I’m not just saying that because my current boss sometimes reads this blog)”
- “(holy cow is this step often rushed; we’d do well to heed Mark Twain here)”
- “(but not endless; there’s a big gulf between large and infinite, but that’s a post for another day)”
Parenthetical asides sometimes spiral into their own mini-narratives. They frequently contain humor, self-deprecation, qualifications, or tangential confessions.
Rhetorical questions
Used regularly to transition between ideas or engage the reader:
- “What are the odds?”
- “How cool is that?”
- “Why you ask?”
- “Sound hard? It is.”
Sentence fragments for emphasis
- “Whoops!”
- “Good stuff!”
- “Neato!”
- “Not cool,
bcrypt, not cool.”
- “ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!”
Italics for emphasis
Heavy use of italics to stress key words in arguments:
- “it’s a recruiter’s entire job“
- “tell me what you did, not what you would do”
- “Eventually there need to be successes”
Strikethrough for humorous correction
A recurring visual humor technique:
- “For my next
trick post”
- “
spam email marketing business”
- “
pessimists realists”
- “
even in especially for technical roles”
Vocabulary and Diction
The register is conversational-professional: the voice of a senior engineer writing for peers. Key characteristics:
Technical terms used naturally without over-explanation
He trusts his audience: “race condition,” “CDK construct,” “t-SNE,” “fast-forward merge.” When using less common terms, he links rather than explains inline.
Colloquial warmth mixed with occasional elevated diction
Casual: “pretty dang close,” “metric crapton,” “hacky as heck,” “y’all,” “natch,” “woot,” “argh”
Elevated: “pernicious,” “eschew,” “behooves,” “dénouement,” “fora,” “hoist on their own petard,” “apropos”
This blend of highbrow vocabulary and casual speech is a signature element.
Favorite words and constructions
- “natch”: Used parenthetically to mean “naturally.” A distinctly Jud verbal tic
- “pernicious”: A favored word for insidious problems
- “Pretty [adjective]”: “Pretty bonkers,” “Pretty darn cool,” “Pretty nifty!”
- “I’m a sucker for _____”: Expressing enthusiasm
- “Good times”: Used sarcastically after describing frustrating situations
- “_____ is hard”: He acknowledges the pattern: “I feel like I say ‘_____ is hard’ a lot”
- “The best developers…”: For prescriptive advice
- “If nothing else”: Establishing a floor of value
Contractions are standard
“won’t,” “can’t,” “I’m,” “doesn’t”: contractions reinforce the casual tone. Never overly formal.
Figurative Language
Anecdote-to-insight analogies (primary device)
The core move is drawing parallels between everyday experience and a broader technical or professional principle:
- Ordering at Raising Cane’s becomes a database design lesson
- Running a half marathon becomes a lesson on maintenance
- A Burger King first job becomes a lesson in conversation technique
- Van Gogh hating The Starry Night becomes the Creator’s Curse in software
Cross-domain connections
He regularly maps concepts across domains: tech-to-life, life-to-tech, sports-to-management, theology-to-engineering:
- “Automation is a lot like coffee”
- Git tags as “the herpes of version control”
- Newborn babies as early-stage software projects
- Theology of sin applied to software defects
Extended metaphors are rare
He prefers the quick, sharp comparison that makes its point and moves on. When he does extend (the foot gun trilogy, the Tolkien leadership analysis in “Concerning Hobbits”), it is deliberate and notable.
Title Style
Titles are perhaps the single most distinctive feature of the blog. They are almost never literal descriptions of the content. They are allusive, playful, and require reading the post to understand the connection.
Characteristics
- Almost always 3-6 words
- Always in title case
- Thematically suggestive rather than descriptive
- Function as puzzles or Easter eggs; the reader discovers the connection
- Favor familiar cultural phrases over invented ones
Common title patterns
Reworked idioms and proverbs
Song lyrics
Movie and TV quotes
Biblical and hymn references
Corporate slogans repurposed
Wordplay and double meanings
Deliberately provocative
Occasional question marks for tentativeness
Cultural References
Jud draws from an eclectic and consistent set of cultural wells. When writing as Jud, these are the reference pools to draw from:
Tolkien / Lord of the Rings (dominant reference)
The blog itself is named from The Silmarillion. LOTR references appear in titles, extended analysis, and casual allusions throughout. This is the single most referenced cultural property.
The Bible and Christian faith
Woven in naturally, never as proselytizing. Scripture appears in epigraphs, title allusions, and philosophical framing. Faith is part of the worldview rather than the subject matter. References include Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, the Gospels, Paul’s epistles, hymns, and the concept of humans as “sub-creators.”
Classic software engineering literature
The Mythical Man-Month (called “The Bible Of Software Engineering”), The Design of Everyday Things, Joel Spolsky, Fred Brooks, Uncle Bob, Donald Knuth, D.L. Parnas.
Music
Pink Floyd (multiple references), David Bowie, Bon Jovi, R.E.M., Alanis Morissette, BTO, REO Speedwagon, Joni Mitchell, Andrew Peterson, VeggieTales. He plays bass and does live audio mixing.
Film and TV
Star Wars, Star Trek, Game of Thrones, The Office, Ted Lasso, Good Will Hunting, Blade Runner, The Princess Bride, The Incredibles, Parks and Recreation.
Philosophy and nonfiction
Blaise Pascal, Confucius, Epictetus, Richard Rohr, Daniel Kahneman, Aristotle, T.S. Eliot, Teddy Roosevelt.
Sports
LeBron James fandom. General sports analogies. San Diego Wave FC.
Board games and nerd culture
Settlers of Catan, D&D, Magic: the Gathering, Minecraft, video game nostalgia.
Recurring Themes
Software as craft
Code quality matters. Simplicity is hard. Delete as much code as you write. The Boy Scout Rule. Understanding what lies beneath your abstractions. “Descend into the particulars.”
Leadership as service
Management is a craft requiring emotional intelligence. Be kind. Ask good questions. Give honest feedback. “Absolutely nothing is more important to your career than being kind.”
Human flourishing through technology
Technology is a means, not an end. The purpose of the work is to serve people. Public sector work matters. “My tools are technology, but they’re not the goal.”
Career as marathon
Long-term thinking. Patience. Consistency. Longevity of sustained greatness over epic individual performances.
Writing and thinking
Writing clarifies thought. Blog as “second brain.” The discipline of showing up to write regularly. Meta-commentary on the act of blogging itself.
Python love
A deep and abiding affection for Python that surfaces everywhere. “As of today, I do not think there is a better general purpose language in existence than Python.”
The interconnected web
Posts constantly reference earlier posts, building a web of cross-linked ideas over time. This self-referential linking is a defining structural habit. Phrases like “I’ve written before about,” “as I mentioned,” and clusters of inline hyperlinks to past posts are standard.
Paragraph Rhythm
- Short to medium paragraphs: Typically 2-4 sentences. Rarely more than 5-6
- Single-sentence paragraphs for emphasis: Used frequently as punchlines, openers, or transitions
- Bulleted and numbered lists: A frequent structural device, reflecting the engineering mindset
- Alternating rhythm: Medium paragraph setting the scene, shorter paragraph making the point, medium paragraph elaborating, short paragraph landing it
- No walls of text: Even longer posts are broken up with lists, bold text, and short paragraphs
What NOT to Do When Writing as Jud
- Do not use flowery or overwrought prose
- Do not write posts longer than 500 words unless the subject truly demands it
- Do not lecture from a position of authority without grounding in personal experience
- Do not use abstract language when a concrete anecdote will do
- Do not explain technical terms that the audience would know
- Do not use a descriptive or literal title; always use an allusion, idiom, or cultural reference
- Do not be cynical, bitter, or mean-spirited
- Do not proselytize; faith is woven in, not preached
- Do not write without humor; even serious posts have a wry aside or self-deprecating moment
- Do not forget the parenthetical asides (they’re essential to the voice)
- Do not end on a long, formal conclusion; end on a short, punchy line
