The useful stuff, actually curated.

∙ EXTERNAL LINK

Missing Semester (MIT)

A short, high-signal video course on the tools and concepts most CS programmes skip: shell, editors, dotfiles, version control, security. Builds the foundation you keep using long after an AI handles the typing.

∙ EXTERNAL LINK

The Linux Command Line (William Shotts)

The book I wish I'd found first. Available free online. Reads like a patient teacher rather than a reference manual.

∙ EXTERNAL LINK

explainshell.com

Paste any shell command and get every flag, pipe, and operator explained inline. Useful even when an AI writes the command for you; you still want to know what you're about to run.

∙ EXTERNAL LINK

Arch Wiki

The most comprehensive Linux documentation on the internet. Useful regardless of which distro you use, and the explanations are unusually patient with the reader.

∙ EXTERNAL LINK

Julia Documentation

Better than most language docs. The performance tips section alone is worth bookmarking before you write a single loop.

∙ EXTERNAL LINK

Think Julia (Lauwens & Downey)

A gentle introduction to programming concepts through Julia. Free online. Good if you are coming from a non-CS background.

∙ EXTERNAL LINK

Julia Discourse

The forum where real Julia problems get solved by the people writing the language. AI knows the docs, but it doesn't know the threads where someone hit your exact edge case and got the maintainer to weigh in.

∙ EXTERNAL LINK

The Turing Way

A community-built handbook for reproducible, ethical, and open research. Strongest on the bits no one teaches you in a programme.

∙ BOOK

How to Take Smart Notes (Sönke Ahrens)

The book that nudged me from scattered files into something closer to a working second brain. Pairs well with Obsidian or any plain-text notes habit.

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∙ BOOK

Writing Science (Joshua Schimel)

On structuring scientific writing so a reader actually wants to keep reading. The OCAR pattern alone is worth the read.

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∙ BOOK

The Craft of Research (Booth, Colomb, Williams)

A classic on framing a question, building an argument, and writing it up. Worth rereading at every stage of the PhD.

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∙ BOOK

A PhD Is Not Enough (Peter Feibelman)

Short, dry, candid advice on building a scientific career. The bits about choosing problems and presenting them are the ones I keep coming back to.

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∙ EXTERNAL LINK

Good Enough Practices in Scientific Computing

A short paper from Wilson et al. with practical, low-friction habits that make research code reproducible without becoming a software engineer about it.

∙ MY TOOL

ClusterPilot

The CLI I built for managing HPC cluster workflows: job templates, log scraping, the bits that scratched my own itch first. Open source on GitHub, installable from PyPI.

∙ EXTERNAL LINK

CUDA.jl documentation

Julia's GPU stack. The Performance Tips and Kernel Programming pages are where I keep going back when I'm tuning a kernel.

∙ EXTERNAL LINK

Digital Research Alliance of Canada docs

The documentation for Canada's national HPC infrastructure (formerly Compute Canada). Account setup, SLURM examples, software stacks, and the etiquette of shared resources. The pages I bookmark most.

∙ TOOL

Obsidian

My second brain. Plain markdown, local-first, plugin ecosystem that bends to whatever workflow you need. Most of my research notes, drafts, and reading log live here.

∙ TOOL

Claude Code

Anthropic's CLI for working alongside Claude in a terminal. It's how I'm building this site, drafting research code, and turning ideas into pull requests faster than I could on my own.

∙ TOOL

Zotero

Open-source reference manager. Browser clipper, PDF library, BibTeX export. Free, syncs across devices, and doesn't lock your library inside someone else's database.

∙ TOOL

VS Code

The editor I keep coming back to. Fast, well-supported, and the Julia, Python, and remote-SSH extensions cover most of what I need on a working day.