Studio Zenkai

The Vibe-Coded App Checklist: 12 Questions Before Your Team Depends On It

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 09:00:00 -0400

A finance director spent two months of evenings and weekends building software with Claude. Not a toy. A full replacement for his company’s purchasing and accounting tools. It worked. It would save tens of thousands of dollars a year. Then someone asked three questions: who else can log in, where is the data backed up, and what happens when he’s on vacation?

Silence.

The Coin Has to Be Earned

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 08:00:00 -0400

When I was a kid in Madagascar, physical education was standing in rows with wooden rifles. Straight, left, right, up, down. Shout. Repeat. Real achievement was rare, and when it happened, it happened without ceremony.

Teaching an AI to Run My Chalet While I'm at the Beach

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0400

CastorOS is the platform I’ve been building to automate the boring, repetitive parts of running an Airbnb: door codes, thermostats, guest messages, the works. The big idea is simple: you should be able to go off-grid for a weekend, phone dead, no bars, and not worry that a guest is standing at your door with no idea how to get in.

Japan Does Not Shout

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 08:00:00 -0400

In June 2026, we took our family through Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, and Tokyo. The visual diary is here. These are the notes behind the pictures.

Stepping out of the Unix Shell: Automating Sage 50 with C#

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 09:00:00 -0400

I live in the terminal. My ecosystem is Unix, my language is Ruby, and my framework is Rails. So, when a project appeared that required building a Windows console application in C# to talk to a legacy desktop accounting software, I was bewildered.

Like asking a Canadian to cut queues.

Good Software is Boring and High Leverage

Sun, 23 Nov 2025 02:00:00 -0400

Ask a junior developer what makes software “good”, and you’ll hear about Clean Code, SOLID principles, or perhaps 100% test coverage. Ask a hacker, and they might point to a clever one-liner or an obscure algorithm.

But when you are working in a team, various managers, product owners, and business priorities — the definition shifts. We aren’t just writing code; we are managing complexity and delivering value.

Rails, Legacy DBs and the 80ms timeout: the MAVEN sidecar

Mon, 03 Nov 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Given my Github profile and published articles, it is clear my favorite programming language is Ruby. It is elegant, concise, and allows teams to ship features fast.

But Ruby on Rails has a specific philosophy regarding databases: it assumes it owns the connection. A thread checks out a connection, holds it while doing processing data, and releases it when the request is done.

In 99% of cases, this is fine. But in a recent project, we faced a legacy MS SQL database (Wigos) that did not share this philosophy.

La Journée de la Harpe : Montréal, cordes tendues vers 2025

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 12:00:00 -0500

Geraldine Jippé’s quiet passion has been harps for years.

On my side, I always pictured harps as props for elves or Celtic postcards: beautiful, fragile, distant. Then I got invited into La Journée de la Harpe, organized by the Société des harpistes de Montréal, where she asked me to be the official photographer. The building felt like an airport terminal for strings: people arriving from Toronto, from the States, from far southern towns, all to gather around wood and tension.

The Little Elon and the Book that Bore his Name

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 12:00:00 +0000

This article is only for entertainement purposes

In 1948, a Nazi engineer named Wernher von Braun wrote a book. Marsprojekt. It was technical. It was precise. It described a Mars colony ruled by an engineer called the Elon.

In 1971, a boy was born in Pretoria. His father named him Elon. The father had read von Braun’s book. He liked the name.

Tariffs as a test: Will We Stand Up or Step Back?

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 06:00:00 -0500

The 25% tariffs on Canada aren’t just a tax on goods. They’re a test. A test of our resolve. A test to see if we’re willing to stand up or if we’ll just sit back and take it.

Economic experts warn these tariffs will hurt. Unemployment could rise. Growth could stall. Young graduates might face fewer opportunities. It’s the same playbook Trump used on China during his first term — a blunt instrument meant to force compliance through brute strength.

Electronic Diet

Thu, 02 Jan 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Towards the end of “About Heri”, I wrote about regular exercise.

Not just for the body, but for the mind too. Exercise is not just sweating or lifting weights. It’s challenging yourself. Your whole body or mind screams “stop!” but somehow, you find the motivation to continue to the next step. Then it continues.

4 Habits to pick up in 2025

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 02:35:26 -0400

2024 is wrapping up. The days are short, and the year feels spent. I’ve decided on four habits for 2025. Simple things, but they matter:

Balancing Customer Happiness, Developer Burden and Feature Delivery

Tue, 12 Nov 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Your most valuable customer is frustrated because features are late. Meanwhile, your engineering team is drowning in overtime, and attrition is climbing. How do you keep customers happy without burning out your team?

I have already written about the value of an Engineering Manager, for a single. But what happens for a whole organization?

To tackle this, I designed the Weighted Customer Happiness (WCH) and the Customer-Developer Delivery Index (CDDI) — two metrics designed to balance customer priorities and developer well-being.

The Airbnb Reality Check

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 12:00:00 +0000

During the pandemic, with optimism running high, I bought a vacation property in the Laurentians. It was meant to serve two purposes: generate income through short-term rentals and create priceless family memories

The chalet (official website) has everything one could hope for: a picturesque waterfront location, a cozy log-cabin aesthetic, and modern amenities like a spa, 4K TV, and high-speed internet. For a time, the plan seemed flawless. The property generated $70k–$100k annually, covering the mortgage and allowing me to dream of scaling this venture into a sustainable, lucrative lifestyle.

About Heri

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Key facts:

Born in one of the world’s poorest countries, Madagascar. I get the “scarcity” mindset from this, but also memories of beautiful white sandy beaches
Spent teenage years in Nairobi, Kenya, a regional center in East Africa. From having to learn English to meeting people from all over the world, I learnt diversity and its benefits. Diversity makes us richer and more resilient, making us more sensitive to forces we did not know and might otherwise overwhelm us
Went through “Classes Préparatoires Aux Grandes Écoles” and Engineering school in France. Like the Concorde plane, TGV, Grandes Écoles is one of France’s highest achievements, mixing excellence, hard work and elitism
Played with the Internet early on, with Emoticons.free.fr and evry.depeches.free.fr. One was hilarious photoshopped pictures of me, while the other was my adventures as a foreigner, with non-politically correct comments about the French. Both drew early attention. This taught me the power of the Internet and technology.
Started MontrealTechWatch.com, a technology blog covering tech and startups in Montréal, a key driver of the local startup community. At its peak, the blog attracted 10k daily readers. Also organized Montréal’s first ever hackathon (Blitzweekend), and then Montréal’s first StartupWeekend at Business School HEC.
2 photography exhibitions in Montréal, and as well as being the official photographer for Le Cypher X & Urban Science, one of Montréal’s top hip-hop group, and many local events.
Crowdfunded millions of dollars for Montréal artists and local projects with SeedingFactory. We made videos, worked on their social media, marketed, made friends. Also worked as VP of Marketing for MakeAChamp, a crowdfunding startup specialized in athletes
Membrer of artist collective Howl Arts! with the launch of several albums, books, graphic novels, movie works while being an active part of the Montréal underground art community
Lost father to cancer while I was still navigating Montréal. From this, I am probably more sensitive to healthcare and health issues than most
Senior/Lead/Staff Engineer for VC-backed startups such as Sonder, Klue, but also for global companies like Nasdaq or Decathlon. Additionally Software Consultant for many projects, from Airbnb/Uber clones to crypto trading platforms. I do not count the years coding anymore, but still get excited for new technologies or new patterns every now and then
Maintains and operates a chalet on Airbnb, deep in Québec countryside. I build docks and Adirondack chairs, chase away beavers and mice, have fun with the kids and can tell you the minute differences between bedsheets from Costco or Ikea, or 7 reasons why Dawn is better.

So as you can see, I am comfortable in deep Quebec or France countryside, in a hacking space or in a neighorhood hip hop event. But due to my history, I am somehow allergic to alcohol (or at least at the level they are consumed in Western countries), debt and social norms.

Athleticism & Country Wealth

Fri, 09 Aug 2024 12:00:00 +0000

In a Malagasy primary school, we stood in rows with wooden rifles. Straight, left, right, up, down. Shout. Repeat.

This North Korean-esque drill was physical education, or what passed for it. The real focus for the school was academic results, the kind you could test on paper.

Necessary but not sufficient

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 12:00:00 +0000

The progression of software engineers is like this:

AI will (probably) take your job (eventually)

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 10:35:26 -0400

I am a fan of AI and machine learning, well before it was trending on CNBC or spamming your Facebook feed.

The exponential progress in the past few years means everyone can find cues to complex questions in a few seconds, where you would previously need to ask experts or pay a professional to do it for you.

Kemal: Performance for Rails Developers

Mon, 06 May 2024 10:35:26 -0400

Ruby is elegant, expressive, and gets the job done—most of the time. But for high traffic, your monolith feels like a mule dragging a cart uphill. Enter Crystal and the micro framework Kemal: a duo similar to Ruby’s syntax but has C-like performance. It’s a choice that promises speed, simplicity, and a dash of thrill.

Crystal - Ruby, but compiled

Crystal borrows from Ruby syntax, and sometimes even improves on it. Its biggest difference is that any code needs to be compiled. Think of Crystal as Ruby after a mean bootcamp and a strict diet. Here’s why:

Decathlon, the people's gear

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 12:00:00 +0000

There is a sports store called Decathlon. My kids call it “the blue store”. Maybe you’ve heard of it. If you have a family or even just a pair of feet, you should go there. It is not for gold medalists. Or for Everest climbers. But it’s for the rest of us – the folks who want to move, to play and try something new without emptying the bank.

Decathlon makes “good enough” sports gear. The kind you grab when you are not trying to hit records, or just break a sweat. What they offer is designed and tested in house. Proven materials, solid construction with minimal waste, built to withstand rowdy kids. Personally, I’ve seen Decathlon products survive multiple accidents. Can’t say the same for shinier brands that cost multiple more.