Accidental Research Before 20s: How It Started

AMAN ALI — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 06:14:13 +0000

In 2023, it was my college vacation. Me and my friend planned to make a platform for graphics designers so that they could show their portfolios. We were coding; we were too young, with no sense of enterprise software, frameworks, or software methodologies.

We chose Django for the backend and Django templates for the frontend. Django templates possess almost the same syntax as Jinja. My partner had difficulty with the syntax; he was not familiar with it. I suggested we could use Chameleon or some other engine, but still he wasn’t comfortable with templating syntaxes.

I thought for days about how to fix his issue. Alongside that, I was thinking about how to ditch HTML syntax, because Json was replacing XML, so I was wondering: is there any possibility of introducing a new, efficient paradigm in HTML?

I failed to find a templating engine that fit my bro. So I came up with another idea.

I started studying React. I understood the concept of Babel. I was around 15, so don’t judge me. I saw that there are just functions, not real markup. I was like - can we do this in Python?

What I’m proud of is that I didn’t look for something similar. I started creating a templating paradigm that just nests functions into each other. It was a successful experiment. I was a little bit happy, but also very confused. Is this worth it? Can we use it in real-world projects?

I’m not going into too much details about my experiment. Then our college started, we got busy, and we never again had time to continue our project. We both got admission in different universities.

Three years passed. In the 3rd semester of my university, I was checking my github repositories and saw Fubam. I opened it and thought, can we use it in real life?

I searched many books, research papers, and most mainstream templating engines. Of course I also discussed it with many AI agents. I realized it was something new, something different, something efficient; something worthy.

Then my data structures professor assigned a project where we had to visualize data. I thought, I don’t want to use Jinja. Let’s try Fubam as an experiment.

I discussed it with my professor and told him I was using a new templating engine I made myself, is it allowed?. He seemed proud. “Oh, you made it yourself?” He advised me to write a research paper and publish it, it would help in my master’s.

I was like, okay, fair deal.

My colege friend also suggested something similar. I thought, sure, I’ll do it in the post-semester gap.

Then something unexpected happened.

I saw a poster about the first International Conference on Advances in AI and Computing. It was a research conference. I gathered some details, but I was just collecting information — nothing special.

Then an incident happened in my class. There was a hateful atmosphere. My ego lit up a little. Oh, you guys think I’m dumb just because I have 0.4 less GPA than you?

Then our department coordinator messaged me: Do you want to participate in ICAAIC? Today is the last date.

I gathered all my confidence and said yes. As I always say, I’m Ironman.

I made an abstract of the project. My memory is sharp, so I remembered all the papers and books I had looked at before, and I cited them. I worked on that the whole day. I submitted it, and within a few hours, I received a mail: your abstract is accepted. Pay your fees and share your presentation file.

I was like, the f* are you asking for money?** Never mind. They gave a 50% discount, but I was still not very happy. What if they don’t publish my abstract? What if they don’t accept it after the presentation? It’s natural.

Finally, it was my presentation day. First, there was a lunch party. I joined, and for the first time, I was surounded by PhDs and researchers. After an hour, the session started. I presented.

I think I grinded. I don’t know what others thought, but I’m quite sure they didn’t judge me, because nobody in my session was under 35. Huge age gap.

I got a certificate, and the smile on the person who gave it to me, that moment gave me confidence. It was a big day for me, something I’ll never forget.

I named the templating engine Fubam (Function-Based Markup).

It was a bundle of victories for me. I satisfied my ego, made my mom and teachers proud, built reputation, contributed toward my industry, and found a way to replace HTML. I hate HTML, pretty much, by the way. A lot of wins.

The thing I learned from this whole journey is that the most important thing in life is communication and having some balls. Intelligence is secondary. Just commit and grind.

I also learned that I’m now ready to accept failures. They haven’t happened yet, but I’m mentally prepared. Now this 3–4 year journey will never take the same amount of time again. If I make something worthy, I won’t wait, I’ll execute.

And if you’re curious my partner wasn’t comfortable with Fubam syntax either.

Humans or Monsters: The Moral Crisis of Our Species

AMAN ALI — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 06:48:47 +0000

I am a heavily tech-influenced person, and much of my work revolves around engineering, coding, and data-driven insights. Yet, my first blog is not about computer science. It’s about humanity.

Recently I was conducting an audition as the president of my university’s Debating Society. A girl came with a script titled something like “Humans or Monsters.” I believe in using statistical information, and she reminded the room about men committing rapes and wars, which is, of course, true.

But as a judge, I was waiting to see whether she would balance the concept instead of making it gender-biased, because the topic was humans, not men. I feel like she left out important points, or even worse, world sees the issue as if only men are at fault. Yes, men do commit many of these crimes; I agree with that. But there are also women who commit serious wrongs.

Statistically:

Total deaths in war in recorded history over the last 45 years are few million.

-Roughly 108 million women aged 15–49 worldwide have experienced non-partner sexual violence at some point in their lives.

You could even say nearly 130 million total war-related deaths across all human history.

But there is something even more tragic — something that is ignored but shouldn’t be. I’m not defending men; I’m acknowledging another crime against humanity:

Abortions.

In the last 45 years alone, there have been 1.3 billion recorded abortions, around 73 million abortians annually. This isn’t killing in war or in conflict, this is killing innocents before they even open their eyes. It’s tragic. It’s brutal. And we can’t ignore it. Many liberal and feminist women support this practice, and tens of millions of “human children” in the womb are lost every single year.

If we stick to the topic, both men and women commit terrible acts. But the real point is about humanity. My society represents the voices of youth and conscience, and I represent them. I somehow represent humanity itself. I cannot stay silent about a crime this large, especially when the perpetrators often do not even realize the moral weight of their actions.

Even 108 million rapes and 130 million war-related deaths over recent decades pale in comparison to the estimated 1.3 billion abortions worldwide over the same period. This is not about men or women; it is about humanity losing its sense of moral responsibility. Many societal movements and norms have normalized acts that should be treated as serious ethical and legal issues, and as a society, we often fail to recognize the gravity of these actions.

DEV Community: AMAN ALI

Accidental Research Before 20s: How It Started

Humans or Monsters: The Moral Crisis of Our Species