Writing
7 min read
Six fixes too small to blog about, shipped as one deliberate pass: a 12-line parser instead of an LLM, merge-not-duplicate, bulk clear, brand pull-to-refresh, sticky headers that Android never had, and a bug cured by deleting a component.
7 min read
Reusable 'Weekly essentials' lists shipped with one new schema field and zero new tables. The design fork (new model vs status vs flag), the copy-both-ways helper, and the three ripple effects one boolean forced.
6 min read
The feature was one line of SQL: my most-added grocery items, ranked. DynamoDB doesn't have the clause. Here's the client-side aggregation that shipped instead — with explicit scan budgets, honest counts, and a documented exit ramp.
6 min read
Users wanted to reorder and rename the aisle headers on their shopping list. Small problem: the aisles don't exist — they're free-text strings Claude stamps on items. The fix is an old modeling trick: split identity from display.
5 min read
Drag-to-reorder on a grouped React Native list set off a cascade of Android gesture bugs — crash, refresh freeze, header overlap, janky scroll. The fix wasn't debugging harder. It was re-reading the requirement.
6 min read
A grocery app has to work where signal dies — the store. Here's offline-first without a sync engine: React Query pauses, persists, and replays your mutations, made robust by keyed mutation defaults and client-generated IDs.
6 min read
A real 3-way theme setting for Expo + NativeWind: one colorScheme.set() call cascades light/dark/system through your utility classes, the navigation theme, and the native tab bar. Redux holds the choice, AsyncStorage remembers it.
6 min read
Speak your groceries, get a structured, categorised, editable list. The interesting part isn't the LLM — it's the review gate I put between Claude and my database so a bad parse can never silently save.
6 min read
Same commit, opposite outcome: dev deployed clean, main rolled back every time. The log said only 'Validation failed with 1 error(s)'. The cause was a name two branches were quietly fighting over.
3 min read
There is a good chance that you will need to interact with an external API to receive and send data,...
1 min read
An arcade game player wants to climb to the top of the leaderboard and track their ranking. The game...
5 min read
Metro died with a transformFile error that named no file. The trail ended at a @babel/types from 2017, pulled into node_modules by an Amplify dependency. The hunt, and the one-block fix.
7 min read
My Expo app needs three backends — sandbox, dev, prod. The obvious way to hand each build its config hit a 4 KiB wall. Here's the per-environment pattern that replaced it.
4 min read
Voice-first grocery lists on Amplify Gen 2 + Expo, built in public. The stack, what works already, and the three ways it's bitten me so far.
1 min read
Given an array of integers, find the longest subarray where the absolute difference between any two...
2 min read
Interacting with external APIs is often essential, and React Query simplifies this by allowing you to...
2 min read
Building a multipage form in React can be streamlined using React-Hook-Form for form handling and...
1 min read
In this series, I will begin a journey into creating a platform that will allow anyone willing, to...
3 min read
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the most basic building block of the Web. It defines the meaning...
2 min read
An avid hiker keeps meticulous records of their hikes. During the last hike that took exactly steps...
2 min read
A teacher asks the class to open their books to a page number. A student can either start turning...
2 min read
Given a 6 X 6 Array arr: 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0...
1 min read
There is a large pile of socks that must be paired by color. Given an array of integers representing...
1 min read
Two friends Anna and Brian, are deciding how to split the bill at a dinner. Each will only pay for...
1 min read
Given an array of bird sightings where every element represents a bird type id, determine the id of...
1 min read
The HNG Internship is an ambitious attempt to change the way education is done in Africa. It’s the...