Shamim Ali articles - 28 total
Stop Treating LLMs Like APIs, Treat Them Like Unreliable Teammates
Most Python + AI projects break down the same way. A team wires an LLM into a system, gets amazing...
Your Python AI Code Needs Fallbacks More Than It Needs Accuracy
Most AI conversations obsess over accuracy metrics. Precision. Recall. F1 scores. Benchmarks. While...
Why Most AI Bugs in Python Are Data Bugs in Disguise
When an AI system behaves strangely, the instinct is to blame the model. Maybe the architecture is...
AI + Python Isn’t About Models, It’s About Controlling Uncertainty
When people talk about AI in Python, the conversation usually jumps straight to models. Which...
Building AI Systems Is Mostly About Engineering Discipline
AI is often presented as something fundamentally different from traditional software, but once you...
Python Performance Is Mostly About Avoiding the Obvious Mistakes
Python has a reputation for being slow, but in practice most Python performance problems come from...
Writing Python That Still Makes Sense a Year Later
Python is often praised for its readability, but readability doesn’t happen automatically. It’s easy...
React Performance Problems Usually Start with State, Not Rendering
When a React application starts to feel slow, the instinctive response is often to reach for...
Code Style Is About Reducing Cognitive Load
Code style debates often get stuck on surface-level details like formatting, line length, or brace...
DevOps Isn’t a Toolchain, It’s a Feedback Loop
DevOps is often reduced to a shopping list of tools: CI pipelines, cloud providers, containers,...
Your Back Is Part of Your Engineering Career
Most engineers are careful about technical debt, but surprisingly careless about physical debt....
Clean Code Is a Communication Tool, Not a Style Preference
Discussions about clean code often get derailed by debates over formatting, brace placement, or...
Why Most Node.js APIs Fail Under Load (And How to Avoid It)
Node.js has a reputation for being “fast by default,” which is both true and dangerously misleading....
“Just Add Caching” Is Usually the Wrong Answer
Caching is one of the most misunderstood tools in software engineering. It’s often suggested as a...
Validation Is Your API’s First Line of Defense
TypeScript gives developers confidence, but it does nothing to protect your API at runtime. Every...
Most Engineering Problems Are Communication Problems
When a system goes down, the instinct is to blame code. When a project slips, the instinct is to...
The Difference Between Junior and Senior Engineers Isn’t Code
Early in your career, it’s easy to believe senior engineers are just faster typists with deeper...
You Don’t Need More Tutorials, You Need Better Problems
Most people trying to become software engineers think they’re stuck because they haven’t found the...
What a Learner Should Do to Become a Software Engineer
A lot of people ask how to become a software engineer, hoping for a checklist or a fast path. There...
My Node.js API Best Practices in 2025
Node.js has been powering production APIs for well over a decade now, and in 2025 it’s no longer...
Communication is a Superpower
Sometimes people joke that we become software engineers because we "like computers more than people"...
System Architecture for Startups: Build Fast Without Painting Yourself Into a Corner
Startups don’t fail because their architecture isn’t “advanced enough”. They fail because their...
From MVP to Production: Lessons Learned Building Systems That Scale
Most systems don’t fail because of bad technology choices. They fail because they were never designed...
Python for Backend Developers: Writing Code That Survives Production
Python is often praised for how easy it is to start with. What’s talked about less is how well it...
React Isn’t the Hard Part, Designing for Change Is
Most React tutorials teach you how to use hooks. Fewer teach you how to think in React. After...
Advanced React Patterns Every Developer Should Know
Once you’re comfortable with hooks and basic component composition, React really starts to shine....
Common Git Mistakes (And How to Fix Them)
Even experienced developers make mistakes with Git. The good news is that most Git mistakes are...
Understanding How ChatGPT Produces Human-Like Responses
ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is a powerful language model that has significantly advanced the field...