DEV Community: Fayaz

Does Your Favorite AI Tool's Cache Hit Mean Your Project's Uniqueness Miss?

Fayaz — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 07:53:32 +0000

This is NOT a Challenge Submission Post 🥰

I was checking out Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge Submissions. I do this from time to time on DEV Challenges, even when I myself don't have time to submit my own projects.

This time was no different. I didn't have time to submit my own project, but had a couple of hours to checkout other submissions.

Then I was wondering, what would be my project if I had time! 🤔

Before I go forward, I just want to spit something out! Yeah, I could just ask Claude, Antigravity, or GitHub Co-pilot to generate the idea, build the implementation, write the submission post and submit — all by themselves! But that's not me. I would've revealed that fact within my submission post, even if I had done that. Otherwise, it wouldn't be fair to other contestants!

On the other hand, I wouldn't submit something, if at least some important parts of it wasn't my own. In other words, I'm not in favor of submitting completely AI generated works, even with the revealing! That's just my choice. I don't intend to pass judgement on others. If you want to do that, it's 100% up to you!

Now that it's out of the way, let me go back to the original story. Where was I? Oh, I was wondering, what my own project would've been, if I had enough time for this Challenge.

So I was thinking that, and just to do a bit of brainstorming, I opened Gemini. I know, most people prefer Claude these days. But for these sort of brainstorming, Gemini works well for me, especially Gemini Notebook, A.K.A NotebookLM.

So I asked Gemini specifically to go to the challenge description page, and cook 10 unique ideas for me.

To my surprise, well, may be not a total shock, but at least I raised one of my eyebrows, when I saw Gemini's suggestions mostly matching many of the submissions! Some even almost verbatim.

Then I thought, well, it's Google. So, perhaps Gemini already indexed those posts, right?

Then I extracted all the submission entries URLs myself, and then asked Gemini again to check those posts, and suggest 5 unique project ideas that are different enough from those submissions.

This worked. I'm pretty sure these 5 ideas were unique up until that point! I was already sleepy at that point, so I went to sleep without going further down the rabbit hole.

The next morning, which is the date of posting this, after some routine works, being only few hours away from submission deadline, I checked for new submissions again.

And this time I got the shock! This time I noticed quite a few posts, very close to what Gemini suggested me, which were unique up to last night!

How did that happen?

Did Gemini suggest me the same thing some other people were working on, or brainstorming with it (but didn't yet submit)?
Did they come up with those ideas all by themselves, and it was just a coincidence that AI suggested me the same before they made those posts public?
Did the frontier labs share user data among themselves, and hence people keep getting LLM cache hit, when they work with AI tools with similar things?

I have no idea. But it's too much of a coincidence to just let go!

I remember the incident that happened a while ago, between a mathematician and OpenAI, about OpenAI's frontier model solving Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem.

To summarize the incident somewhat, the mathematician claimed he was using ChatGPT with his work. So the LLM just used his research data, and regurgitated with some of it's own variations, and OpenAI just took it as the LLM's own invention.

If I consider that everyone is being honest in such incidents, then this is the only logical conclusion I can think of: when we are using AI, AI is using our prompts, works, conclusions, and spreading them around as either cache hit or part of it's training data, killing our own intellectual human uniqueness in the process.

What does that mean if my conclusion is correct?

I don't know. I leave the decision up to you. But I know exactly what I'm going to do from now on. But that's a post for another day. 🥰

Note: If you find a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes in this post, that's because I just typed it all in one go, without bothering to check with any AI tool. So, if something is unclear in the post, please just quote it and ask me in the comment. 🙏🏼

So, We Don't Need to Learn or Use Basic Math / Arithmetic Anymore? 😜

Fayaz — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 13:41:23 +0000

Have you heard about calculators?

Do you know that calculators can do addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and some other basic math fast and without any errors?

The frontier calculators, a.k.a. scientific calculators, can do even more complex math, super fast and error-free! You won't even have to review them anymore. You'll just have to know how to "prompt them" properly!

And then there's something called computers! The government just put a ban on them, so only a specific set of people can use them. Those are the next level. They can do all sorts of calculations super fast, using some skill files called programming.

Seriously, why do people bother to learn math anymore? 😜

Sounds familiar? 🤣

If so, then:

Do not stop learning the fundamentals of programming.
Do not stop writing code by hand.
Use AI if it is useful, but not as a replacement for programming.

Feeling Burnt Out? May Be You Should Read This! ❤️‍🩹

Fayaz — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 08:24:59 +0000

Note: I started writing this as a comment to one of @embernoglow's posts, but it became too long.

So I'm posting it as an article instead.
Hope it'll help someone in need. ❤️

Hey You! Whoever you are!

Know that you are not alone.
Know that you are important.

If you are feeling burnt out again and again, and nothing you try seems to help, then perhaps you need to find the true meaning of life, your reason for being.

Perhaps you need to take a spiritual journey, a journey within.

Until you find the true meaning of your life, and align your work with that meaning, no matter what you try, you'll keep burning out.

The true meaning of life will give you a kind of motivation that will never run out.

But I can't help you with this, I wish I could, but I can't.
Only you can help yourself.

I can only share what helps me when I feel down.

First, I try to become comfortable, as much as I can, depending on the situation. Eat something sweet, lie down, take a walk in the woods — whatever helps.

Sometimes even crying helps!
Yes, even grown men cry. There's no shame in that.

But that is only the beginning.
Most people stop there. They think the job is done, but that's where they are wrong.

Because the next step is the most important step.

Once I'm comfortable enough from the first step, I dive deep into my inner self.

Then I contemplate about:

Who I am, really!
The reality of this life: we are born, we live for a while, then we die.
I try to feel all of it.
Then I try to find the meaning in it.

What is the point, if it all ends in a short while!

Then, I remind myself of what I've already found in this short journey of mine, called life:

I found meaning in taking care of my mother, who is a cancer survivor.
I found meaning in helping others.
I found meaning in Sufi poetry. Poetry of Rumi.
I found meaning in prayer.
I found meaning in one true God who created everything.
I found meaning in trying to connect to God, through which connection our essence lives on.
And yes, I found meaning in continuing what I do: programming, writing, reading, connecting with people. Because it activates my mind, it helps me sustain this life, my family, and others too. However little, in whatever way!

If finding meaning is too difficult because of a tough situation, I try to find a little inner peace, but not instant enjoyment or instant gratification.

Instant gratification burns further. On the other hand, inner peace is a kind of happiness that gives spiritual energy.

I find inner peace in:

looking at my loved ones with deep care.
helping other people, even a little bit.
looking at the innocence of a child who is laughing, playing and passing a worry free time.
taking a deep breath and feeling alive!
thinking and deeply believing that this universe, my life and everything in between must be connected somehow, and all these must not be in vein, even if I don't feel the connection at times.

Once I find a little inner peace, even for a moment, the next step is gratitude.

I'm grateful for this momentary inner peace. I'm grateful for this experience called life.

I thank my creator — the creator of everything that exists. I thank my parents, my wife, my siblings, my friends ... I thank everyone from the bottom of my heart, for being there for me.

Of course, I don't just go and tell them that in that instant. That's for another time. This gratitude is in my heart, for what I feel deep within.

In your case, you need to thank whoever you feel this gratitude to, deep within yourself, from the bottom of your heart — to God, to the Universe, to your parents, or whoever fills your heart at that moment.

Feel it. Really feel it.

Gratitude is the beginning of a spiritual journey that'll help you find the true meaning of your life. That meaning of life will provide you the energy that'll never burn out, or at least, it'll continue to fill you up whenever there is a need for it.

But as I said before, I can't really help you with this.
Because mere words are never enough.

You'll have to take this journey yourself.

I can't promise you that the journey will be easy.

In fact, spiritual journeys are often difficult, painful even. Leaving those bad habits, instant gratifications, wasting of time — are going to take their toll.

I can promise you one thing though: if you take this journey, it'll be fulfilling.

If you read this far, perhaps it helped you a little, perhaps it didn't, but I deeply hope and pray that you'll find your path soon! ❤️‍🩹

I wish you all the best! 🥰

BoonFest: The Anti-Sloth Game Where Generosity Means Survival!

Fayaz — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 06:37:45 +0000

This is a submission for Weekend Challenge: Generosity Edition

What I Built

I built BoonFest: a web game designed to awaken your inner generosity.

Most games reward you for conquest, killing, speeding, hoarding, stacking power, and looking out only for yourself. In BoonFest, that exact mindset is a death sentence. Here, to survive, you'll have to be generous, productive, and mindful.

Most games are designed to be addictive—promoting endless sloth. BoonFest is built to create balance between healthy entertainment and your real life, with built-in playtime restrictions.

Demo

boonfest.ai.studio

Code

SweaDev / BoonFestDemo

BoonFest Demo

BoonFest

An anti-sloth, pro-social web game balancing capital accumulation, self-cultivation, and societal welfare through generative altruism.

🌟 Overview

BoonFest challenges players to resist deceptive short-cuts and predatory economic traps while navigating the delicate tri-fold balance between personal capital, self-mastery, and civic altruism.

As you navigate real-time economic turns, entropy steadily degrades your societal environment—visualized dynamically by your world's Ecosystem Hue (shifting from verdant green towards catastrophic crimson red). Only by cultivating your core attributes and funneling personal wealth into pro-social Boon projects can you stabilize the world, conquer entropy, and achieve enduring legacy.

🎮 Gameplay Details & Mechanics

1. The Three Pillars of Self-Cultivation

Your attributes dictate your capacity for honest productivity, physical resilience, and altruistic impact:

Pillar	Symbol	Primary Function	Strategic Value
Mind	🧠	Labor Efficiency	Multiplies net Credit yields from honest Earn cards. Higher Mind unlocks high-tier intellectual and architectural contracts.
Body	⚡	Entropy Dampening	Bolsters physical and

…

View on GitHub

A Little Background

This Weekend Challenge is specifically interesting for me!

DEV did something unique for this one: @heyitsjem, on behalf of The DEV Team, asked the DEV community what the next Weekend Challenge theme should be.

Some cool suggestions came up from the community, but to my pleasant surprise, DEV decided to run with generosity, which was inspired by my own world peace suggestion!

Since the theme this time was inspired by my suggestion, I thought I must participate in this one, as an appreciation for The DEV Team's kind consideration! 🙏🏼

Initially I wanted to develop a donation organization finding web app for this Challenge, but @sizzlebop beat me to it with her Sprinkle Project.

Well, this is generosity challenge, so I'm just grateful that someone already did what I wanted to do! 🥰

How I Built It

As I've already mentioned, the idea generation took too long. So I didn't have enough time to manually develop the game. I had multiple options to develop the game using AI. I chose AI Studio.

I've used AI Studio before, but only for checking out, never for a complete app with deployment. So, I thought, why don't I try it out and see how it goes!

Turned out, it was an excellent decision. Without AI Studio, I wouldn't be able to complete this demo.

Suffice it to say, with my existing Google AI subscription ($19.99/mo), I ran out of my daily limit fast. I had to use some prepaid Gemini API Credits. But I'm glad I could complete the demo in less than $10 API expense. Thanks goes to the Google AI Team! 🥰

The Game Idea

Almost immediately after replying to @sizzlebop's comment, I thought, hey, why don't I develop a generosity game, where giving means winning!

That idea stuck to my brain, but forming the actual game logic where generosity wins, proved to be more difficult than I initially thought. That's normal though, most games we play these days translates taking to winning, not the other way round. On the other hand, endlessly giving without an "End Game" is not really fun!

So, I had to take the healthier alternative to taking, which is apparently not fun, and make generosity interesting in game play.

I accepted my inner challenge, and started brainstorming with literally pen and paper.

So, yeah, the entire game logic is 100% original. This demo is only a partial implementation, as the idea generation phase took too long to actually implement the entire game within this short challenge window.

Naming BoonFest

As I was working with the game play logic, multiple name idea came to my mind. BoonFest was one of the first few names, but I didn't really expect the .com version of the domain name to be available. So I was really glad to be able to secure BoonFest.com for the future of the game!

Game Development with AI Studio

After the idea generation, I used AI Studio for game development and Publishing.

My development experience with AI Studio was surprisingly good. The whole process from start to publish was very smooth.

I've implemented Gemini API to generate some in-game content, and with AI Studio it was just a single prompt and then securely adding my Gemini API Key from the Settings panel.

All the in game AI content can be changed from Admin panel, so it's not a simple AI generation implementation. AI Studio did it without any issues at all.

Prize Categories

Along with contesting for the overall challenge winner, I'm also applying for the Best Use of Google AI prize category.

Hope you'll like this brand new game.

Please stay tuned for future updates once the Challenge judges finalize their decisions.

Stay blessed! 😇

I Won a Writing Challenge That I Almost Didn't Publish!

Fayaz — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 17:24:53 +0000

All praise to almighty God, and thanks to Google and the DEV Team, a while back, I won the Google Cloud NEXT '26 Writing Challenge!

Google Cloud NEXT '26 Winners

Jess Lee for The DEV Team

May 7

Congrats to the Google Cloud NEXT '26 Writing Challenge Winners!

#devchallenge #cloudnextchallenge #googlecloud

2 min read

A big congrats to all the other winners of this challenge. 🥳

The "interesting" thing is, I almost didn't even publish the post! 😬

I was running behind schedule and I still had too many things to say. I wanted the post to be perfect! But then I remembered the saying:

Perfection is the enemy of good enough.

So I focused on a specific topic, and completed writing right around 20 minutes before the deadline.

And just when I wanted to press the Publish button, I thought, why don't I check the Challenge page and see how much time I have left.

To my utter shock, the DEV Challenge page was showing the status: ENDED!

For a minute there, I thought I must have miscalculated the deadline based on my time zone, but then I got my confidence back after double-checking the deadline and timezone conversion.

At that point, there was no time to confirm with the DEV Team, so I just published the post first, and then wrote a comment on the Challenge announcement post.

Long story short: it was showing me the ENDED status because of a bug.

Thanks @jess for those quick responses! 🥰

Phew! Man, was I ever glad that I went through with publishing the post!

Obviously, after becoming one of the winners, I was totally thrilled, and in a way, gained a few pleasant lifelong lessons:

Never give up!

Ship, even if it's not perfect.

Hope my story will motivate others to publish more.

If you liked the post, here's another real-life story where I learned a few more lifelong lessons - and this time, the hard way!

Summer Bug Smash: Smash Stories 🐛🛹

Fayaz

Aug 24

Why my biggest embarrassment was also one of my greatest learning experiences in Programming!

#devchallenge #bugsmash #programming #performance

10 min read

FayazFollow

A Software Engineer who strongly believes you can add tremendous value by knowing & implementing Software Engineering best practices even at the age of AI; & puts human life & dignity above all else.

Why my biggest embarrassment was also one of my greatest learning experiences in Programming!

Fayaz — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 06:29:53 +0000

This is a submission for DEV's Summer Bug Smash: Smash Stories powered by Sentry.

The background

This happened almost twenty years ago, in the year 2006, back in my undergraduate days, when I was still studying CSE - I participated in my first and only International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC), which was then known as ACM-ICPC.

I was, and still am, one of those programmers who like to take it slow, with full clarity, and try to completely grasp the concepts all by myself before jumping into implementation. As a result, I never was competitive programming contest material!

So then, why did I participate in that contest?

Well, one fine morning, I was working on a project in our university's computer lab, and two of my friends came to me and said, "We want to participate in the upcoming ICPC that our university is hosting, and we want you to join us!"

They even wanted to make me the team lead! I was hesitant at first, but then I thought, "Why not? It will be a good learning experience!" So I agreed to join them. Except for the team lead part, of course, that would have been a bit too much for me, given my lack of interest in competitive programming.

A bit more about my own background

I've never publicly shared this story before, especially because of the embarrassing part of it, but I think it's way past time to share it now, as I feel that it can be a good learning experience for others.

To make sure readers understand the context of my embarrassment, I need to give a bit more background about my programming experiences up until that point.

I started my Bachelor in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) in 2002, at North South University and I was introduced to programming only in the first semester. Before that, I had no idea what programming was, but I found it interesting from the very first day!

C was my first programming language, but it was only part of a single credit lab course, which ended merely in three lab sessions, one and a half hours long each! So my real taste in programming began in the second semester, with the course named "Introduction to Object Oriented Programming in Java" - if my memory serves me right.

Around the middle of that second semester, there was an intra-university solo programming contest, and I participated in it. I was able to solve three out of six problems, which landed me third place in that contest! I was very happy about that, and it gave me a lot of confidence in my programming skills. But after that, outside my regular course curriculum, I became more interested in math, robotics and software development in general. For some reason, competitive programming never really attracted me that much.

That said, since I was attending that ICPC team contest anyway, I did try to prepare for it for a while. Part of that preparation was going through some problem sets from previous contests. As a CSE student, I was already familiar with most of the algorithms that were needed to solve those problems, so all I needed to do was to practice enough problems to be able to solve them quickly during the contest. We didn't get much time to prepare, so we thought it would be best if we participated in an actual contest before the main event.

Fortunately for us, there was an online programming contest hosted by Topcoder that was happening around that time. That was a solo contest also known as SRM (Single Round Match). All three of us participated in that contest, and all of us were able to solve two out of three problems individually, which was a good result for us.

So, from that preparation, we were expecting to solve at least 50-60% of the problems in the main contest! We weren't expecting to win, but we were hoping to do well enough to be recognized!

As a straight-A student, that was a very basic expectation for me, and I was very confident that I would be able to achieve that. But as it turned out, I was in for a big surprise!

The embarrassment

Now that all the background is out of the way, let me get to the embarrassing part of this story:

We ended up solving ZERO problems in the main contest!

Yes, you read that right - ZERO problems! We were not able to solve a single problem in that contest, and we ended up at the very bottom of the scoreboard!

Doomsday!

Every religion has a doomsday, and if programming were a religion, then that contest was our doomsday!

As I said before, I thought it would be a good learning experience, and I was right about that eventually, but none of us were expecting this sort of devastating learning experience!

Out of ten problems, we were able to solve none! We were not even able to solve the easiest problem in that contest, which was a very basic math problem. I still remember that problem somewhat, and I can still solve it in my head without much difficulty. But during that contest, we were not able to solve any of them!

I clearly remember, the moment I finished reading problem A (the very first problem), I knew that was the easiest problem in the contest.

In every ICPC, usually there's one problem that is very easy, as far as programming contests go, and it's expected that most teams will be able to solve that problem. The first one is not always the easiest, but in most cases, it is.

So I started solving it and probably within the first 5-6 minutes, I submitted my solution. But to my surprise, it was rejected! And the reason was given: "Memory Limit Exceeded". I was shocked! I had never encountered that error before, not in the practice problems we solved, and not in the past two contests I participated in!

It's not that I didn't know what that error meant, but for that particular problem, the input was really straightforward, and there was no way that my solution could have exceeded the memory limit, or so I thought! I was very confused, and I tried to figure out what went wrong, but I couldn't find any issue with my solution. So I submitted it again with some improvement in the algorithm, and it was rejected again for the same reason!

No matter what I did, I was not able to solve that problem, and I was not able to solve any of the other problems either! All three of us kept getting the same error, for all the problems we attempted to solve! We were completely baffled, and we had no idea what was going on!

The contest was four and a half hours long, and we gave up after trying for almost three hours! We were completely demoralized, and kept thinking there must be something wrong with the contest system, or maybe it was about solving those problems more efficiently. But no matter what we tried, we could not figure it out!

After we gave up, we spent the rest of the time gossiping among the three of us, trying to have some fun, as our last unsuccessful attempt to salvage some dignity from that contest.

And right when there were only a few minutes left in the contest, suddenly something clicked in my mind! OMG! I realized what the problem was!

The Aha moment!

Along with the computer, the contestants were allowed to bring some programming or algorithm books, and a pen-drive with some code snippets in it.

To solve the problems faster, the night before the contest, we wrote some code snippets for some common input and output handling - like taking inputs from the console (Standard Input), taking inputs from a file, printing outputs to the console (Standard Output), printing outputs to a file, etc. following common programming contest input output patterns. We wrote those snippets in C, and we were using those snippets in our solutions.

But the problem was: we were taking all the input lines into an array all at once, and then processing the array to get the result based on the problem statement, and then concatenating the result into a single string, and then printing that string as the output. That was a very inefficient way of handling input and output, and it was causing our solutions to exceed the memory limit!

However, since we were only focusing on solving the problems, we didn't realize that our prewritten input and output handling snippets were causing the problem! We were so focused on solving the problems that we didn't even think about the input and output handling part of our solutions!

Sample Code

As it happened long ago, I don't have the exact code snippets we used back then, but I can give you a rough idea of what they looked like.

1. The Flawed Code (Memory Limit Exceeded)

For example, in this version, we preallocated giant arrays to read all input numbers into memory before processing. Then we processed all formatted output strings in another huge array before printing anything to standard output.

With 100,000 per test case across up to 110 test cases, this instantly exceeded the judge's memory limit.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#define MAX_NUMBERS 100000
#define MAX_LEN 25

/* 
 * Flawed approach: Pre-allocating giant arrays to store all 
 * inputs and outputs in memory before printing.
 */
char input_numbers[MAX_NUMBERS][MAX_LEN];
char output_buffer[MAX_NUMBERS][MAX_LEN * 2];

void print_differing_suffix(const char *start, const char *end, char *out) {
    int i = 0;
    while (start[i] && start[i] == end[i]) {
        i++;
    }
    sprintf(out, "%s-%s", start, end + i);
}

int main() {
    int N;
    int case_num = 1;

    // Buffer inputs and outputs across test cases
    while (scanf("%d", &N) == 1 && N != 0) {
        int input_count = 0;
        int output_count = 0;

        // Store ALL input phone numbers into memory first
        for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) {
            scanf("%s", input_numbers[input_count++]);
        }

        // Process stored inputs into output buffer array
        int i = 0;
        while (i < N) {
            int j = i;
            // Check for consecutive phone numbers
            while (j + 1 < N && atoll(input_numbers[j + 1]) == atoll(input_numbers[j]) + 1) {
                j++;
            }

            if (j > i) {
                // Consecutive sequence range found
                print_differing_suffix(input_numbers[i], input_numbers[j], output_buffer[output_count++]);
            } else {
                // Single standalone phone number
                strcpy(output_buffer[output_count++], input_numbers[i]);
            }
            i = j + 1;
        }

        // Print header and buffered outputs all at once
        printf("Case %d:\n", case_num++);
        for (int k = 0; k < output_count; k++) {
            printf("%s\n", output_buffer[k]);
        }
        printf("\n"); // Blank line after each case output
    }
    return 0;
}

2. The Corrected Code

The proper approach should've been to read, process, and print one line at a time, rather than keeping the complete input and output in memory. In other words, we should've never built a giant concatenated output buffer before flushing it to stdout.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

#define MAX_LEN 25

/* 
 * Corrected approach: Helper function to print range directly 
 * to stdout without allocating output buffers.
 */
void print_range(const char *start, const char *end) {
    int i = 0;
    while (start[i] && start[i] == end[i]) {
        i++;
    }
    printf("%s-%s\n", start, end + i);
}

int main() {
    int N;
    int case_num = 1;

    // Process case by case using streaming I/O
    while (scanf("%d", &N) == 1 && N != 0) {
        printf("Case %d:\n", case_num++);

        char start_num[MAX_LEN], prev_num[MAX_LEN], curr_num[MAX_LEN];
        long long prev_val = 0, curr_val = 0;
        int in_range = 0;

        for (int i = 0; i < N; i++) {
            scanf("%s", curr_num);
            curr_val = atoll(curr_num);

            if (i == 0) {
                // First phone number of the test case
                strcpy(start_num, curr_num);
            } else if (curr_val == prev_val + 1) {
                // Phone number is consecutive, extend current range
                in_range = 1;
            } else {
                // Consecutive sequence ended; output range or single number immediately
                if (in_range) {
                    print_range(start_num, prev_num);
                } else {
                    printf("%s\n", start_num);
                }
                // Start tracking new sequence
                strcpy(start_num, curr_num);
                in_range = 0;
            }

            strcpy(prev_num, curr_num);
            prev_val = curr_val;
        }

        // Output the final range or single number for the current test case
        if (N > 0) {
            if (in_range) {
                print_range(start_num, prev_num);
            } else {
                printf("%s\n", start_num);
            }
        }

        printf("\n"); // Blank line after each case as required by problem specification
    }
    return 0;
}

Lessons learnt

We thought that programming contests, and programming in general, were all about solving problems very efficiently, but we learned that, in real life, user input and output handling is also a very important part of programming, and it can make or break your solution! We learned that we should always be careful about how we handle input and output, and that we should never assume that the input will always be small enough to fit in memory, or that it will always be in a format that we expect.
We learned that we should always test our code against realistic input and output scenarios, with edge cases.
We learned that, sometimes, in programming, taking breaks and looking at the problem with a fresh set of eyes is essential to find trivial mistakes that we might have otherwise overlooked, while being too focused on the problem, the solution and the efficiency of it.
We learned that, in real life, failure doesn't mean the end of the world, and that we should always be ready to learn from our mistakes, and that we should never give up when it gets tough! As the proverb says:

When the going gets tough, the tough get going!

While trying to solve the problem after the AHA moment, we realized that we should've used a version control system like Git to keep track of our solutions, so that we could easily go back to a previous simpler version of our code and fix the input/output handling part without having to rewrite the entire solution from scratch, out of all the jumbled code we had written at the later part of the contest to make them unusually efficient! Had we used git, we probably would have been able to solve at least one problem in those last few minutes of the contest, and we would have been able to salvage some dignity from that contest!

The happy ending

After that embarrassing event, we three attended another programming contest, the last one in our life, as a team.

It was not an ICPC, but it was a prestigious inter-university programming contest nonetheless.

We secured 2nd place in that one. 🏆

And last but not least, I started my first job as a Software Engineer a week before my last programming contest. It was a students' contest, but since I was still a student when I registered for it, they allowed me to participate! 😇

Conclusion

I sincerely hope that this story will help others avoid making the same mistakes we made, but more importantly, I hope that you'll learn to rise up from failures - own them, learn from them, and use them as stepping stones to future success!

Disclaimer

I used AI to help with grammar and spelling corrections, but the story is genuine, and the main write-up is entirely my own.
Code snippets above are not the exact code snippets we used back then. They are AI (Gemini) generated rough approximations of what they would look like. So please take the story as the lesson, not the code snippets.
The cover image is AI (Gemini) generated.
I wrote the entire thing from memory. So, although the overall story is real, a few minor details here and there may not be!

References

The Actual Problem Set. I found it after deeply looking for it in the Wayback Machine. Salute to the Wayback Machine for preserving this problem set for so long! 🫡
My Topcoder Profile after attending the only online programming contest (SRM) before the main contest. Thanks to Topcoder for keeping my profile for twenty years! 😍

I need a new kind of Open Source Software License: "AGPL Pro Max"

Fayaz — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 20:05:48 +0000

As far as I know, AGPL doesn't cover Large Language Models.

I think it should, but it doesn't.

Going forward, we need a new kind of Copy Left License for Open Source Software - something that covers LLMs as well.

I mean, your LLM can be trained with my Open Source Software, but only if it's made Open Source as well!

I'm calling it AGPL Pro Max! 😎

Someone please give it a better name, and make it popular among developers. 🙏🏼

Question: Does something like this exist already?

If so, then what is it?
If not, then why not! 🤷

FayazFollow

A Software Engineer who strongly believes you can add tremendous value by knowing & implementing Software Engineering best practices even at the age of AI; & puts human life & dignity above all else.

New AI Model Quality Check Flowchart.

Fayaz — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 18:36:38 +0000

Is it banned by any Government?

Yes = Good Quality
No = Bad Quality

😁🤷🙏

FayazFollow

A Software Engineer who strongly believes you can add tremendous value by knowing & implementing Software Engineering best practices even at the age of AI; & puts human life & dignity above all else.

Don't always push the EASY button!

Fayaz — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:54:45 +0000

1. Use it 🧠 or lose it!

BRAIN ≠ BR AI N

2. If AI helps you to stay ahead of the curve 📈

Then use it when you have to, but be smart about it!
Think long term, strike the balance 🤔
Don't lose your skills by always pressing the EASY button!

FayazFollow

A Software Engineer who strongly believes you can add tremendous value by knowing & implementing Software Engineering best practices even at the age of AI; & puts human life & dignity above all else.

You'll not be replaced by AI if ...

Fayaz — Sat, 30 May 2026 03:23:59 +0000

There are many reasons why one may not be replaced by AI, not even by a possible future ASI.

Here's one reason that may just apply to you! ❤️

You'll not be replaced by AI if you can generate creative ideas faster than AI can implement them! 🫡🚀

Note for critics:

Current AI models (as of May, 2026) are not advanced enough to implement complex ideas consistently in high quality without human interventions.

But even if a possible future Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) implementation can do so, laws of physics like massive energy requirements, environmental concerns etc. will prevent the implementation to replace the work of Billions of people world-wide.

Our hardware advancement rate is far far slower compared to our software advancements.

We humans are far more efficient and compatible to planet earth compared to the hardware we've invented.

FayazFollow

A Software Engineer who strongly believes you can add tremendous value by knowing & implementing Software Engineering best practices even at the age of AI; & puts human life & dignity above all else.

Is it rare to crave for a Super Accessible ASI while also loving your own Human Creativity?

Fayaz — Thu, 28 May 2026 22:30:00 +0000

Am I one of the few "rare" developers who:

1. "Secretly" want AI to finally succeed ...

... doing all the things AI CEOs continuously promise AI will be able to do, (but fail to deliver) - so that I can implement all those ten thousand ideas I thought I would never have enough time to implement; or will finally be able to implement my unique Open Source Everything App that will do everything from note taking, to time management, to publish blogs on my personal websites and/or social media, to email management, to password management ... everything in a deterministic way (not like the AI agent way) - all while everything being end to end encrypted, secure and private!

2. Yet, still love their creative selves ...

... writing code, poetry and articles by hand, even in a possible future where a super accessible ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence) exists, and even if it's 100% free with unlimited tokens, and even if it can be run locally on cheap hardware?

Or is this seemingly contradictory craving very common among developers?

Just wanted to know!

Note: No AI was ~~harmed~~ used to write this post. All the grammatical mistakes and the lack there of, are mine alone 😁

FayazFollow

A Software Engineer who strongly believes you can add tremendous value by knowing & implementing Software Engineering best practices even at the age of AI; & puts human life & dignity above all else.

AI fatigue is very real and people are fighting back!

Fayaz — Wed, 27 May 2026 19:45:09 +0000

Don't really like how CEOs are acting like AI is the solution for everything, it certainly is not!

Was watching this video today:

People need to realize: the reality of AI and the promise of AI - are two completely different things!

Treat AI like any other technology:

Act upon the reality, not the promise!

But people are fighting back, that's a good thing.
Hope we'll reach an equilibrium point soon!

My notes:

Don't let companies force you to use AI if it doesn't help your career in the long run.

Is your company simply using you as a Human Tool to train your AI Overlords that'll eventually replace you? - Fight back!

Gain and retain your knowledge and skills by doing (coding, designing, writing, reading etc.) yourself.

Use AI only if it doesn't violate the above two points!

Foundational human knowledge is not replaceable.

Your thoughts?

Disclaimers:

I have no affiliation with the author of the video. Only sharing it because I thought it's interesting for this community.

No AI was ~~harmed~~ used to write this post 😇

FayazFollow

A Software Engineer who strongly believes you can add tremendous value by knowing & implementing Software Engineering best practices even at the age of AI; & puts human life & dignity above all else.