DEV Community: Alish Giri

If you struggle to learn then this is for you.

Alish Giri — Sat, 23 May 2026 09:28:12 +0000

I have kept up with technology for almost a decade and most remote developers I worked with ask me how am I doing this.

Let's assume that we have to learn something and that something is number 1 to 10.

Every number is an entire section so they are complicated.

Now ideally learning 1 and then 2 then 3 and so on is how we learn. This linear fashion of learning is not how I have been doing it for the last decade.

You don't have to master anything right away or understand anything at all at the very start. Just expose your brain to the new concepts and ideas. If you don't understand 1 move to 2, 3, 4 and so on. Come back to it with different approach later when you reach 8 or 9.

For example, recently I have been involved with hardware development using C++ and ESP-IDF (Espressif IoT Development Framework) Software Development Kit (SDK). And rather than wasting my time learning wiring, electronics, PCBs, KiCad for Schematics individually I decided to fully immerse into production ready development of a fairly practical embedded system development (firmware + full-stack development + IoTs).

So I created a Flutter app with Golang backend and a new folder called firmware for the C++ and ESP-IDF SDK code for the hardware programming. I researched on the industry standard tools used and downloaded KiCad for Schematics & PCB design and Autodesk Fusion 360 for 3D designing.

As you can see things are already piling up.

I also bought the IoTs devices (hardwares to be controlled by the C++ firmware). And finally, I also did a small workspace set up for wiring.

Now mastering each would have taken me months but I chose the "my way approach". I did the full lifecycle in one go and in just one week I completed about 80% of the entire lifecycle of the hardware development fully connected to Flutter and Golang projects using WebSocket. The remaining 20% I can skip for now. Because I will use this valuable time to brush up on other areas like "The Reading" 😄.

Yes, I did not mention but you also have to read and research on the new concepts too. Everything except coding felt rough and unpolished but I continued anyway and now that I have reached 8 and 9, I have questions and concepts that are automatically maturing. I am bombarding questions to the AI and learning as I go.

Few more iterations of this for few different projects will make me a complete Embedded Systems Engineer. This will open up a whole new opportunities in my career.

So the next time you decide to learn what steps are you going to take?
The linear or more practical?! 😉

Software equivalent for these hardwares

Alish Giri — Thu, 21 May 2026 07:06:12 +0000

We don't understand anything unless our brain associate it with relatable contents. This is why learning new information is so hard because there is nothing to associate that new piece of information with.

This is exactly what happened to me when I understood that the IoT devices you see below are like packages/dev_dependencies you install in a piece of software you write.

You control these dev boards using mostly C++ and verify that your code controls the hardware as you want and then provide these information to the manufacturer to create a production board with your firmware/code. You also 3D design the case/housing for prototyping and provide the design files to the manufacturer and finally your production device is ready 🚀.

So turns out this is how hardware development work and some of the use cases for your reference are below:

Create an attendance receiver device (like I did in my past project)
Create a face scan to unlock door
Build a custom CCTV recorder with custom logic to identify product
Build a drone

Now you see the practical use case 🙂

The Energy Supply and Demand is fascinating!

Alish Giri — Sat, 16 May 2026 09:39:36 +0000

We consume electricity in real-time. And the demand and supply changes every second. The operators at the power station constantly adjust the generation of electricity based on grid's current requirement.

This is more complex than most people imagine.

Producing electricity means balancing the voltage, current and frequency. Any slight changes could be catastrophic and could cause blackouts or instrument failures.

I always thought that once the power station is built then electricity is produced and distributed but it turns out to be more complex and with renewable energy it is getting even more complex.

The constant need for adjustment surprised me. In addition, the power grid has to work on 50 Hertz (or 60 Hertz in US/Canada) capacity otherwise things will start to break. This frequency is naturally produced by the turbines. All electricity except Solar uses turbines. Frequency itself becomes a “health indicator” of the grid. And Even 49.5 Hz or 50.5 Hz can become dangerous.

Due to these the emergence of smart grid became a necessity. And that is what most power company try to improve. Producing electricity is simple but managing the supply and demand is the most challenging part.

How we power our laptops?

Alish Giri — Thu, 14 May 2026 11:54:19 +0000

Since AI does most of the coding for me — I have been trying to figure out electricity and just learned the following 😄.

Imagine a water pipe.

Voltage is how hard the water is being pushed.
Current is how much water is actually flowing. Electricity behaves similarly.

So this is why you can increase or decrease voltage.

What does this mean for the tech world?

Alish Giri — Thu, 07 May 2026 08:46:23 +0000

For tech enthusiast star lovers out there,

Uranus has just entered Gemini. What does this mean for the tech world?

Well Gemini rules how we process and share data. But what you will be more interested in is that, this transit is widely associated with the next phase of Artificial Intelligence—moving from AI as a tool to AI as a fundamental infrastructure. We may see breakthroughs in neural interfaces, language translation, and how we "speak" to machines.

On a personal level, this energy is electric and restless. It rewards those who can pivot quickly and stay curious, but it also risks significant mental burnout and "information fatigue" due to the sheer speed of change.

How we learn is up for reinvention. Self-taught paths, micro-learning, and immersive educational tech are likely to replace rigid, traditional academic structures.

If you like astrology then don't forget to download Astrocot on your preferred platform to get your personal sky chart explorer absolutely at no cost 😄.

The creation of Power Bar in Astrocot (an astrology system).

Alish Giri — Thu, 07 May 2026 03:15:00 +0000

I created a command bar (Power Bar) to control the system (Sky Chart) using readable text instead of using buttons. When I was building this last year I did not know much about how AI works. Since I have been working on AI integration and AI workflows for a while now. I came to a big realization 😅.

Most companies who integrates AI they are using APIs provided by the AI companies like ChatGPT, Gemini or Deepseek. In technicality, there is no direct connection to AI in your server, you are literally chatting with AI on the server using API so that is what AI integration is all about.

However, now that I have developed Power Bar for Astrocot and is fully functional I have started to understand how I can use this feature with local AI even better. This is mind blowing!

I can now control the screen using AI. This is super complex but I have already done half of the work and I might have something for the tech community for this. Still pre-mature and requires more experiments but if succeeded then I will probably release an Open Source project that might be useful for many.

Not sure how this will turn out though 🤞🏻!

Your talent is invisible without presence.

Alish Giri — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:27:27 +0000

You can build the most secure architecture in the world.

You can write the cleanest code in the industry.

You can solve the most complex B2B supply chain logic.

But if you aren't present where your customers are, you don’t exist.

In 2026, "Presence" isn't just showing up; it’s:

Building in public.
Owning your data and your narrative.
Being the signal in a world full of AI-generated noise.

Presence is the bridge between a "great idea" and a "successful business".

Do you prioritize building the product or building the presence?
Let’s talk below. 👇

A better architecture

Alish Giri — Tue, 05 May 2026 18:15:00 +0000

If you have not understood by now then let me remind you the time you or your team went down through all those codes you wrote few months or years ago and now you have to do that all over again.

This is a very common pattern with established systems. Improvement work is either done or skipped due to higher risk rate. And only selected portion of the work is pushed forward.

This is a where most systems go down the rabbit hole!

Every client I have worked with in the past wants to get things done fast. And until it's too late they will keep pushing. Technology changes fast so keeping up with it is the only way to progress otherwise we already know how fast things deprecate. And messy code cannot be upgraded without adding more messy code 🤮. This is what happened to a client of mine from Norway.

The only solution to this I have come up with is "A better architecture". If the foundation is strong then only few changes are required to make the upgrade. I do this in practice all the time and have been successful at doing this because of my constant need for improvement.

In two of my past projects I rewrote the entire code because I found something better 😅. Most will call me stupid and they will not be wrong. But the backbone on which I do these changes is rigorous integration testing. I write tests and this becomes my single source of truth for the quality I expect from my code. But now that I have all these experiences, even the major upgrade requires minor tweaks surprisingly due to better architectural understanding.

However, the most important factor we want from the code is higher flexibility. Because things will change. And we want to keep all of our hair intact.

Who cares about speed?

Alish Giri — Mon, 04 May 2026 18:15:00 +0000

After 8 years of software engineering, the one thing I am good at is something that nobody really cares about. This reality has hit me hard many times. Who cares about performance if it costs you slightly more investment. Who cares about architecture if it costs you more. Who cares about 0.35 second of improvement or even 2 seconds of faster load time for that matter.

This was a very strange reality I came across when I began the journey of building products few years back. If you don't find a way to exchange value within few weeks then you really need to start restructuring your path. People in business they are looking for ways to reduce cost and improve their time management. Noting else matters.

The speed and performance is added benefit that is invisible to the users. Slow load times is only a problem when they are fully invested in the system but before getting to a point where your app/system becomes a thing the speed and performance are irrelevant.

However, if the same product is already out there and have proven its worth in the market then now you can present your version of the system specifically focusing on the performance and speed. Because now you are solving problem in the industry that is not just app specific, it is performance and speed specific.

Why did I bring this up? You wonder.

Google wasn't the first search engine; it was just faster and more relevant.
Slack wasn't the first chat app; it was just more integrated and performant.
Stripe wasn't the first payment gateway; it was just the first one that didn't make developers want to quit their jobs.

Nobody cares until the performance and speed becomes a visible problem and that will only happen when the product has already been proven in the market.

One Intelligent Platform

Alish Giri — Mon, 04 May 2026 13:30:21 +0000

Every big organisation in some way utilizes technology but end up with a mess anyway. The solution they choose mostly just covers few problems with multiple systems and leaves out the rest in the hands of their team members. Now the team members are responsible for utilising the system to make the operation smooth.

But is your operation smooth right now?

That's the thing with systems. They are complex! The learning curve, the transition cost and the repetitive work is most of the time avoided and the long term pain is accepted because this is how traditionally we were working right?!

Soon this will evolve. The AI integration is making software intelligent. Not just static code and systems where human interaction was mandatory. The AI will independently work as an employee and will be able to manage your operation effectively.

I manage an AI employee (the early version one) and working on improving it. It's a lot of work and the learning curve is steep but no mountain is big if you are willing to take the first step and look at the subsequent next.

Two tutorials to master Riverpod!

Alish Giri — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 08:51:28 +0000

These two YouTube tutorials are all you need to learn how to use Riverpod in Flutter.

Part 2

Part 1

Flutter + AI: Build an AI Trainer App (2025 Tutorial)

Alish Giri — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 04:58:22 +0000

Do you want to build your own personal trainer using the power of AI?? Then rest assure I have got you covered!!! 💪🏻

Drop and give me 5 before you start!!! 😄