Thinkings

These Things Are Much Better Than Spending Time on Résumé

Preface I have been reviewing a lot of literature related to the job market in software engineering and analysing what stands apart and what gets rejected. While writing this article, I am at a very young age and I am very grateful to say that I had an opportunity to interview people for hiring them into a startup, despite my role as a DevSecOps intern (I was that one multi-tasking startup guy).

You Need to Do this to Get An Unfair Advantage in the Software Engineering Market

Preface: This article is about my experiences and opinions based on my knowledge. We all have an unfair advantage since we all are unique and using that to get better in the market would take you much further. I have been working with software for like a few years while being a university student and learnt a lot from all the amazing people I worked with and followed. While I put down things that I learnt, it has to be noted that your opinions and experiences may vary and I greatly respect that.

The Future of Work and Lifestyle - The Inevitable Change in Thinking and Growth

The Current System of Workspace Working for a company or an organisation to become financially stable surely makes you and your family proud, and certainly, when you were in the 90s, that’s what most people termed as widely successful. It’s absolutely important to make money to have a nice home and send your kids to a good school. And most of the time that works and maybe certainly enough. This method of surviving has dominated for a while now and has shaped the current workspace.

There are always Flaws — Malware Development and Exploitation of Control Flow

Disclaimer: The Author of the article does not hold any opinions of facts other than computer technology. Everything here is as per my research and may not be fully accurate (although I tried my best). He is a very simple person and a computer nerd so information in this blog must be taken with a pinch of salt. I have been studying Cyber Security since an early age and know a few things about it till now.

An Old Computer’s Teachings — Why Vintage Systems Can Make You an Expert

On June 10 1997, Apple Computers released the Apple 2 computer which was one of the first mass-produced computers in the world. It was a success and had a sale of 5–6 million units till the year of 1993. There was a small documentary on this by Bloomberg Originals (here on YouTube) about the same with Steve Wozniak. Now I am not a 90’s kid or something. I was born in the year 2004 and had no connection with these computers.

A Minimalist System — Philosophy Behind Terminal-based Applications to Suckless

Since I have been using Linux for most of my life till now and while I started my computer usage on the Windows Operating System (at a very early age), terminal-based programs have been a life-changing things for me. I have been a person obsessed with minimalism and simplicity in everything. While I spend most of my day in the cyber world, I like to have my computer workspace as minimal as possible.

The Alchemy of Open-Source Software — Community and Freedom

Disclaimer — The following blog post contains the very personal opinions of the writer and is not intended beyond the scope of stating views about the Open-Source. The author respects the opinions of each individual so take it with a pinch of salt. Open-source software has been there for a long time since the software industry started to get into some shape. Open-source is not just a way of developing software but a value that makes individuals in the community contribute to making their skills useful to the world.

The Arch Linux Tales: No Wi-Fi for Today!

I have been using Arch Linux for days now for the sake of having full control over the hardware as well as the software (not moved to LibreBoot or CoreBoot but someday in the future). I have been utilising the suckless utilities and ricing my system for the best look I can have and take the privilege of saying “I use Arch BTW”. Since the total control of the Hardware and Software falls in the hands of the user and Arch repository Pacman releases even the latest packages, way before the software is even stable creating a sensation of being the early user of the tool at the same time being ready to crash out the system.

An Old Computer’s Teachings — Why Vintage Systems Can Make You an Expert

Planted January 16, 2024

On June 10 1997, Apple Computers released the Apple 2 computer which was one of the first mass-produced computers in the world. It was a success and had a sale of 5–6 million units till the year of 1993. There was a small documentary on this by Bloomberg Originals (here on YouTube) about the same with Steve Wozniak. Now I am not a 90’s kid or something. I was born in the year 2004 and had no connection with these computers. The first computer I remember was a custom-made PC from a local vendor with an Intel Core 2 Duo and 2 GB of DDR2 Single Channel RAM running Windows 7 Professional on it. I owe a lot of respect to that computer. The fact that I got access to a computer at an early age (5 years old) was a blessing (at least I believe that). I used it mostly for exploring the whole thing and getting some retro games run on it. When I grew up to the age of 16, I decided to rip off the whole computer and understand how it works. I had all the parts disassembled and used the mighty Internet to learn how to build a new one. I studied the parts that I needed, which were the most cost-efficient and high-performance. With the patience of learning them for a month and a half, I went on to build my PC. It was a 16GB RAM (3000 MHz), 480GB SSD, AMD Ryzen 2400G with Vega 11 Graphics. I use that computer till the day I am writing this blog. No upgrades or anything, just the transition from Windows to Arch Linux. Again I consider myself lucky because all I knew before building my PC was Intel. That year, Intel and AMD were at the most competitive stage. And the first time in history (or as per I know), AMD surpassed the Intel Processors and I went on with the AMD. It was an incredible experience using my PC and today, I use it as my primary desktop and as a workstation with Linux installed on it.

Apart from my story about a PC, the fact that I never considered upgrading my PC has a very reasonable explanation and the aim of this blog. It’s the realisation that “Hardware in current times is enough for most of us and we spend a lot of money for absolutely no reason”. There are a lot of exceptions when considering that some people do need specialised specifications in their computers for different purposes. For this blog, I would be considering software developers. If you are a computer nerd using Linux in your system for development purposes, it will relate to you the most.

Operating Systems like Linux consume relatively fewer resources than the Windows Operating System. Distro’s like Arch Linux has a minimum requirement of 512 MB RAM. The unit of measurement considered here is “MB” which I believe is very much affordable. On the other hand, Windows consume a minimum of 2GB RAM (come on, it’s still not going to be a super smooth machine). If you have been following my other blogs, you would know that I use Arch Linux (btw) on a 16GB RAM PC (32 times more than the requirements). It’s just the reason for consuming less and sucking less in everything. I use a 480GB SSD and I have consumed nearly about 30GB with all my development environment setup. So the rest of the space is ideal.

This indicated that if you are cool enough to set these things like Linux and use Vim editors, you would not require a lot of budget to have a solid workstation. I am not talking about Video Editor (requiring good CPU) or Gamers (requiring good GPU). I am talking about computer nerds learning the computer in depth. A workstation like this can give you a lot of freedom to explore the depths and not worry about the system’s failure. Even if it does, it was cheap enough for you. You just installed as much as you needed and not things work smoothly. I you have seen some pro developers out there, some of them still use Thinkpad models that were launched 10 to 12 years ago. This gives them the freedom to mess up the system and go for others. The more expensive computer you have, the more you constrain yourself to break things apart. It also gives you the freedom to spend money on what you require in the first place. Like if you need a storage lake in your system, an SSD or HDD can work as well. You don’t need a system with a high-end GPU for that. These problems are greater in pre-built PCs. Having what you need and nothing more is I believe to be minimalism.

In current days (while writing this blog), if you are a Rust Developer working on embedded systems, you would need a computer with [4 Cores CPU, 8 GB RAM, 256GB SSD, A520 Motherboard, 450W PSU]. Nothing more than in most cases. If you ever need more computation for a while, you can use the cloud! they are one of the best temporary solutions to get a system running with high-end specifications in no time. A smooth integration between your physical system and the cloud is one of the best things you can do. Backing up your system and moving high-computations into it is awesome in a lot of cases. Creating a Data Lake if a redundant and accessible solution is needed works best with the Cloud. These solutions arise when you need them.

How did I learn this? It’s just by experimenting. An old ThinkPad which is of a very low cost would allow you to install coreboot or Libreboot while learning about them with fewer losses in case of any mistakes as compared to owning a four-digit dollar computer. It’s just a fact that the Arch system would run the same in a 2GB RAM computer and a 16GB RAM computer. It’s minimalistic and simple. You learn more for less cost. Get that extra money to buy books and courses rather than to have a full block of storage sitting ideal and in no use.

You learn when you solve problems and you solve problems when you have them. Living in a constraint is misery, but keeping yourself in constraint is your own choice. A still sea doesn’t make a great sailor. Having a turbulent system will make you a better solutions architect than a person using an OS with external support. It’s just the learning that will make you happy. Using an Apple 2 computer would not feel productive, but it will teach you a lot. Understanding the issues that were present at that time and realising the improvements will be fascinating.

Use Vim on a IBM Thinkpad. Why do that? because we can.

It’s not always the amount of work you do, it’s sometimes how much you learn. It’s not bad to break things. They teach you how to join the next time when you break it.