My name is Ramkarthik Krishnamurthy and I'm an engineer, maker, and writer - in that order. I work as a software engineer, I make things on the side, and then I write occasionally (although I plan to write more).
This is my digital home - the essays and notes are my digital garden.
Coding happens to be my passion. My wife thinks I'm working too much because it's hard to tell whether I'm coding for work or working on a side project.
I have created a few side projects. There's a chance you've never used or even heard of any of it. That's because I stick to the developer stereotype. I don't market my side projects. Nevertheless, here they are...
Writing is thinking. I used to take writing seriously, that anything I publish should be the perfect piece, should stand the test of time. That's never the case. I almost stopped writing because of that pressue.
So that’s what this blog is. I write here about thoughts I have, things I’m working on, stuff I’ve read, experiences I’ve had, and so on. Whenever a thought crystalizes in my head, I type it up and post it here. I don’t read over it, I don’t show it to anyone, and I don’t edit it — I just post it.
I don’t consider this writing, I consider this thinking. I like sharing my thoughts and I like hearing yours and I like practicing expressing ideas, but fundamentally this blog is not for you, it’s for me. I hope that you enjoy it anyway.
- Aaron Swartz
So... this is my blog where I write thoughts and express my ideas. Following Maggie Appleton's idea of digital garden, every piece of writing will follow the three stages: SEEDLING → BUDDING → EVERGREEN
The notes specifically start as a seedling and they will be updated over time as I read more and put more thought into it. This eases the pressure to write only fully formed thoughts.
With that, here are some of my writings:
The greatest gift we can give the reader of our blog is the archive. In return, the greatest gift we can get is the reader's time, the fact that they stop whatever it is they are doing and give us thirty minutes or an hour to read through the archives.
If you are looking to start a creative endeavour, you have to remember two things: 1. You are doing this for yourself, 2. Do something you want to be known for.
If you used to maintain a blog in the past but let it die, there is still a way to retrieve the old blog posts using the Wayback Machine
Working on side projects is fun. But side projects don't have deadlines. And when there are no deadlines, it is easy to procrastinate. There are very obvious procrastinations, like watching YouTube for 4 hours continuously or reading the news or scrolling through Twitter. Then there is the not-so-obvious procrastination.
When I write or code, whether I'm intentional or not, there is always an expectation to get something in return. With football, the only intent has been to play well, get better and make my team win. It is the only thing I do that makes me forget everything else in life.
This is the ultimate guide on how to create an Astro blog from scratch. By the end, you will have an Astro website and a blog ready to be deployed.
Multitenancy is hard. It is best to start a project with multitenancy than add it later. These are some notes on SaaS multitenancy.
Notes from the Amazon's Dynamo DB paper
If you're building an RSS reader, these are some rules to follow to ensure you are a good citizen and respect the website owners.
Being a T-shaped person is crucial today. 'Jack of all trades, master of few' extends that. You are an expert in more than one area.
These are my current favorite podcasts. I listen to them mostly when I'm doing chores (washing dishes, meal prepping, etc).