Essays
Essays on software, tools, and the work of making things.
- Choose When to Automate Automation helps when repeated work is clear enough to hand over to a machine.
- Defaults Are Decisions The initial settings in a tool shape what people can do and what they have to learn.
- Errors Should Point Forward A useful error explains what happened and gives you a clear next step.
- Leave Room for the Reader Good documentation helps people find the detail they need without making them work for it.
- Maintenance Is Product Work Keeping software understandable and dependable is part of building it.
- Names Are Part of the Interface Clear names help people understand a codebase before they know how it works.
- Small Changes Are Easier to Understand Keeping a change focused makes it easier to review, explain, and repair.
- A Tool Should Respect Your Attention Developer tools should help people stay with the problem they came to solve.
- Infrastructure Is Part of the Product The systems behind an application shape what its users can rely on.
- Why I Keep This Site Small A personal site should make it easy to write, publish, and leave the words alone.
- Hello World My first post on the new AsimAwdah.com.
- The IDE Should Get Out of the Way Why I prefer editors that stay out of my head over ones that try to think for me.
- Simple Software Lasts Longer On choosing simplicity over cleverness when building tools and systems.
- Writing Code That Works Offline Why local-first, network-independent software is worth building.
- On Reading Old Code Why reading code you wrote years ago is one of the best ways to improve.