I’m a software engineer working from India. Welcome to my corner on the web where I share my thoughts on software engineering, design, books, and other interesting stuff. Most of the posts here are guides and tutorials that document a concept or process. They serve as a reference for what I learn, and a source of criticism and scorn constructive feedback.
Random facts
- I work on an Aerospace product where I build microservices and enterprise API. Before this, I worked as a full-stack engineer at Wipro Holmes and as an ETL consultant for Suncorp.
- I like solving problems and exploring ideas. I work in small bursts. For details about my technical experience, take a look at the stacktrace.
- I read a lot of science fiction, fantasy, manga and poetry.
- I’m not tied to a specific ecosystem. I use Android, Linux, Windows, and iPadOS regularly. I do value cross-platform applications and services.
About this site
- Originally, I built this site with Gridsome to learn Vue 2 and GraphQL.
- In 2022, I reworked it using Lume and Alpine.js. Here are launch notes.
- In 2023, I rebuilt it using Astro. Here are launch notes.
Building a personal site made me
- aware of the web community
- inspired me to contribute to the open source, and
- taught me valuable lessons on accessibility, web performance, typography, design, and more.
It also spurred my networking with people from different backgrounds.
All code is compromise
Apply your judgement, discuss with your peers, and use what’s best suited for your usecase.
You can use the content on this site under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and the source code and the code samples under the MIT License.
If you spot something that’s horribly wrong, give me a shout on Mastodon @naiyer or start a discussion on GitHub. If you want to improve something, I’ve provided the edit links under each post.
The stack
It’s fashionable to build personal sites and talk about their stack. I got this asked many times so here’s the stack of this site.
- Astro: the framework that generates this site
- Remark & Rehype: the markdown and HTML processors
- Fuse.js: the library that powers the search
- Starry Night: the library that powers the syntax highlighting of the code
- Inter and JetBrains Mono: the body and
monospacetypefaces - Vale: the spelling and writing style checker
I’m not using any frontend frameworks. It’s the boring (but reliable) HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and web components running the show.
Credits
- Sara Soueidan’s wonderful articles influenced the focus indicators and many other accessibility related optimizations on this site
- Michelle Barker’s article on aspect-ratio gave me a cue on styling the YouTube embeds
- Josh Comeau’s Modern CSS Reset, Jeremy Thomas’s minireset, and Elly Loel’s CSS Reset form the basis of the CSS reset that I’ve used
- Kitty Giraudel’s article on using calc to figure out optimal line-height influenced how I’ve setup the line-height
- Harry Roberts’s excellent talk Get Your Head Straight influenced the structure of the
<head> - Óscar Otero’s experimental Lume plugin powers the reading time estimates
- Pascal Schilp’s generic-components library runs the Command Center web component under the hood