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Articles by Aphinya Dechalert
The Cursed Em-Dash - And Other Signs You’re Probably Reading AI Sludge
My day job is a tech content editor. Here are my findings. There’s something sterile about most writing online now. Not wrong. Just…off. You’ll be reading an article — maybe about productivity, or software engineering, or something meant to teach you how to be a slightly better meat puppet and it’ll start off okay. Clear sentences. Short. Snappy. You think, Okay, maybe this person gets it. And then: the em-dash. Not one. Not two. Four in the first five paragraphs.
Vibe Coding Is Now A Thing
The way we write software is shifting. Again. You’ve probably heard the term “vibe coding” floating around Twitter, dev Discords, or even casually dropped in team calls. It sounds like a meme, but it’s real, and it’s reshaping how developers, designers, and product folks approach early-stage builds. Vibe coding isn’t just AI-assisted development. It’s when you offload the act of writing code to an LLM or agent and focus almost entirely on outcomes. You’re not debugging.
Latency Is a Social Problem
And it’s messing with our productivity I’ve been thinking about latency a lot lately. Not the technical kind — not the milliseconds between when a request leaves your browser and when a server spits something back. That kind of latency is well-documented, well-measured, and generally well-handled. We’ve got CDNs, edge nodes, and caching layers stacked to the sky. That part is solved. I’m talking about the other kind of latency — the one that isn’t in your APM dashboard.
What Can We Learn About Discipline From the People Who Disappear Online?
Disappearance isn’t always burnout. Sometimes it’s self-regulation in its highest form. I noticed it a few weeks ago. One of the people I’d followed for years — quietly, almost ambiently — hadn’t posted anything in months. No newsletter. No tweet. No story. No soft-launch of a new project. Just silence. There wasn’t a goodbye post. No link-in-bio explanation. They were just… gone. And what struck me wasn’t worry, or even curiosity. It was respect.
Things You Learn When You’re About To Turn 35
Mid-thirties is when the stories start to crack, and something real grows through I used to think 35 would feel like arrival. Not perfection — I’m not that delusional — but something stable. Some kind of internal order. A life that made sense in the ways I thought grown-up lives were supposed to make sense: predictable in the good ways, interesting in the right ways, and padded with enough clarity to keep things from collapsing every time something external shifted.
Agentic AI Is the New Type of AI - But What Does It Actually Mean?
Forget ChatGPT prompts — the future of AI is systems that take action, not orders. There’s a new buzzword in the AI ecosystem: agentic AI. It’s getting thrown around in pitch decks, X threads, and investor updates like it’s the next GPT-4. Spoiler: it might be. But before the hype cycle eats itself, let’s break down what this actually means and why you should care.
Kubernetes Is a Waste of Time for Small Teams
Member-only story You’re Overengineering a Problem You Don’t Even Have Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 5 min read · -- Kubernetes is the shiny toy everyone’s playing with. And if you’re a small team, someone’s probably told you: “We need Kubernetes so we can scale.” But here’s the thing: If you’re running Kubernetes as a small team, you’re probably wasting your time. And it’s not your fault.
Context Switching Is Costing You More Than Technical Debt
Member-only story It’s not your codebase that’s broken. It’s your focus. Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- We’re obsessed with the wrong enemy. For years, the industry has been screaming about technical debt. Entire strategies revolve around managing it. Teams fight to get time on the roadmap to clean it up. CTOs talk about it in board meetings like it’s radioactive waste. But technical debt isn’t the real thing killing your teams. Context switching is. And nobody’s talking about it.
You Don’t Need a Personal Brand to Be a Great Developer
Member-only story And You Should Stop Letting Social Media Tell You Otherwise Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- There’s an idea floating around tech right now that if you’re not building a personal brand, you’re already behind. If you’re not posting threads on Twitter, launching a newsletter, and documenting your every keystroke on LinkedIn, you’re missing out. And if you’re not missing out? Well, you’re invisible. And invisible is as good as unemployed.
AI Won’t Replace Developers. Lazy Devs Will Replace Themselves
Here’s Why That’s a Good Thing. Every other week, there’s another article declaring: “AI is going to replace developers.” No, it’s not. But I’ll tell you who will get replaced. The devs who stopped learning. The ones who coast. The ones doing the bare minimum and waiting for their paycheck to clear. AI won’t take your job. Your complacency will. Let’s get something straight: AI is changing everything about how we build software.
The “Clean Code” Cult Is Slowing Down Your Team
Member-only story And It’s Time You Admit It Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- Let’s get this out of the way: I’m not anti-clean code. I’m anti clean code dogma. There’s a difference between writing readable, maintainable software and obsessing over whether your method names could be more expressive while your business burns to the ground. We’ve turned Clean Code from a set of helpful principles into a cult, and it’s quietly wrecking engineering teams that need to move fast and deliver.
Microservices Are Overkill for 90% of Startups
Member-only story You don’t need microservices. You need paying customers. Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- I know that’s not as sexy as Kubernetes clusters and service meshes, but hear me out. I’ve worked with startups. I’ve worked with scaleups. I’ve worked with companies that thought they were the next Stripe but died a quiet death because they shipped “perfect” microservice architectures instead of a product. Microservices are overkill for 90% of startups. They slow you down.
Senior Devs Aren’t Smarter - They Just Make Fewer Dumb Mistakes
Member-only story If You’re Waiting to “Feel” Senior, You’re Already Behind. Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- Most junior developers think seniority is about intelligence. It’s not. The senior engineer you look up to isn’t a genius. They’ve just been around long enough to see where the bodies are buried. They know where the code breaks, where teams fail, and where good intentions collapse under the weight of complexity.
Why 10X Developers Are Just Unicorn Mythology
Member-only story And Why Believing In Them Is Killing Your Team Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- A few years back, I worked at a startup where everyone talked about this one engineer like he was a god. “He’s our 10X dev,” they said. The guy was a legend before I even joined — coded entire features over a weekend, pushed massive commits at 2 a.m., and solved production outages in minutes while the rest of us scrambled just to figure out what was broken. At first, I bought into the hype.
Remote Work Is Dead. Here’s Why It’s Better That Way
And That’s Why It’s Dying for Most Companies I didn’t want to admit it at first. Remote work felt like the future, and for a while, I thought my team had cracked it. No commutes, no distractions, no awkward office politics — just getting the work done, on our own terms. But then things started to shift. It was subtle. A project that used to take two weeks dragged out to a month. The Slack channels got quieter. People started missing deadlines — and no one really asked why.
The Diversity Hire Problem in Tech Is Worse Than Anyone Admits
Member-only story The Ugly Truth No One Wants to Say Out Loud Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- Tech companies love to flaunt their diversity numbers. They release polished reports, filled with smiling faces and carefully crafted statistics, as if hiring quotas are a substitute for real progress. But behind the corporate virtue-signaling lies an inconvenient truth: diversity hiring in tech isn’t solving discrimination — it’s creating new problems no one wants to talk about.
The Future of Work? A.I. Runs It, You Watch
Member-only story Welcome to the Era of the Observer Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- For decades, we believed that technology would create more jobs than it destroyed. The Industrial Revolution did. The Information Age did. But now, with artificial intelligence advancing at an exponential rate, the equation is shifting. The future of work isn’t you leveraging A.I. — it’s A.I. doing the work while you watch from the sidelines. This isn’t just automation replacing mundane, repetitive tasks.
For The Love of Baby Yoda - Please Stop Writing Python Like It’s Javascript
Member-only story JavaScript Habits Don’t Belong in Python. Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- Python and JavaScript are not the same, and yet, I keep seeing Python code that reeks of JavaScript habits. Stop it. Just stop. If you write Python like it’s JavaScript, you’re making life harder for everyone — including yourself. JavaScript is designed for asynchronous, event-driven environments, while Python prioritizes readability, simplicity, and explicitness.
You’re Not Poor Because of Capitalism - You’re Poor Because of Bad Decisions
Member-only story The Hard Truth No One Wants to Hear Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- Blaming capitalism is the lazy way out. It’s easier to cry about billionaires and corporations than to admit you screwed up. Most people are broke because of their own bad decisions — not because the system is rigged against them. Yes, inequality exists. But the harsh truth? The system doesn’t owe you success. Personal choices will always matter more than economic structures.
Stop Writing Clean Code, Write Maintainable Code Instead
Perfect Code Is a Myth. Write Code That Survives Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- Every software engineer gets bombarded with the idea that their code should be “clean.” Clean code this, clean code that. There’s a cult-like obsession with writing elegant, minimal, beautifully structured code that looks like it was written by a poet rather than an engineer. And honestly? It’s a waste of time. Instead of obsessing over “clean” code, you should be writing maintainable code.
Your Tech Job Will Be Obsolete in 5 Years (Here’s Why)
Member-only story AI Isn’t Taking Your Job. It’s Replacing the Need for It. Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- The tech industry has lied to you. They told you to learn to code. They told you software engineering was the safest career path. They told you that tech jobs were the future. But here’s the brutal truth: your job won’t exist in five years. And deep down, you probably already feel it. The writing is on the wall.
No, You’re Not a ‘Builder’ - You Just Push Code
The Tech Industry’s Biggest Delusion Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 4 min read · -- Silicon Valley loves its myths. And one of the most insufferable is the idea that software engineers are “builders.” Tech bros cling to this identity like it gives them some divine right to innovation. But let’s be real: most of you aren’t builders. You’re glorified assembly line workers for code, and deep down, you know it. The term “builder” implies creation, ingenuity, and problem-solving at a fundamental level.
Let The Onslaught Of New Year’s Resolutions Begin!
May the odds be in your favor Aphinya Dechalert · Follow 2 min read · -- Every January, the world collectively leans into an overhyped ritual: the annual drafting of resolutions. It’s like a mass subscription to unattainable expectations, only to unsubscribe by February. We overcomplicate it, don’t we?
Why Happiness Isn’t the Goal We Should Be Chasing
We all want to be happy, right? Aphinya Dechalert · Follow Published in Write A Catalyst · 5 min read · -- Because bubblewrap It’s practically written into the fabric of life. People say it’s the ultimate goal. The big, shiny prize we’re all supposed to work toward. But, spoiler alert — it shouldn’t be. Chasing happiness as the end-all goal is a bit like trying to catch a cloud. You’ll reach for it, get a glimpse of it, but try to hold onto it and it just slips right through your fingers.
Why Waking Up at 5 AM Isn’t as Life-Changing as You Think
We’ve all heard this one. Successful people wake up at 5 AM. This idea is pitched as a magical way to transform you into a productivity god who’s got it all figured out. But it doesn’t work. Especially if, like me, you’ve got kids who decide 5 AM is the perfect time to start the day (or, if the universe really wants to mess with you, 3 AM). The whole “5 AM wake-up equals success” idea just doesn’t work for everyone, and pretending it does is a one-way ticket to burnout and a whole lot of resentment.
I sold AI art for a year. Here’s how much I made.
Lessons were learned and money was made. Aphinya Dechalert · Follow Published in Write A Catalyst · 5 min read · -- Screen cap from YouTuber promising Etsy glory Ever wondered if selling AI-generated art could actually bring in real money? I did too, so I gave it a shot for an entire year — creating everything from AI art stickers to motivational posters. Let me be real — it was a mixed bag. At times, it was creative and fun; at other times, it felt like a grind.
How to Build an Empire While Also Wondering If Anyone Cares
And understanding what success actually looks like Aphinya Dechalert · Follow Published in Write A Catalyst · 5 min read · -- Disclaimer, I am NOT Elon Musk I tried to build an empire once. It didn’t go well. Actually, it failed quite spectacularly. I could blame it on a lot of things — the kids needing attention, the economy being tough, Mercury in retrograde — but at the end of the day, the real reason is this: I just wasn’t very good at it.
How Becoming a Parent Changed My Relationship with Ambition and Career Goals
I thought I had it figured out, turns out I didn’t at all. Aphinya Dechalert · Follow Published in Write A Catalyst · 5 min read · -- Before I became a parent, I had this crystal-clear image of what success looked like. I thought I knew exactly how to get there — the big career, the fancy title, the relentless hustle. It seemed so straightforward — work hard, sacrifice a lot, and one day, maybe, you’d make it to the top. But then my first child was born, and suddenly, everything shifted.
19 Things You Need to Learn to Pass the CompTIA A+ Exam
There's a lot of content about CompTIA A+ exams out there. As a self taught software dev turned tech writer and editor (also starting my moonlighting journey as freelance cyber security specialist), I've reached a point where the thoughts " I should really get certified " pops into my head.
Thematic Analysis Examples in Action
In today's data-driven world, understanding your customers is essential. Analyzing qualitative data through thematic analysis is a powerful tool that can unlock hidden meanings and reveal the "why" behind customer behavior. This understanding is crucial, as CX-focused companies can command an additional 16% premium on the pricing of their products and services.
The Greatest Debate: Tabs vs. Spaces
Let's face it - tabs and spaces are both just tools. They're both perfectly capable of indenting your code and making it readable. But which one is the right tool for the job? The answer, as it turns out, is not as simple as you might think. It depends on a variety of factors, including your personal preferences, your team's conventions, and the specific requirements of your project.
Siri's Second Coming or Just Another Gimmick?
By Aphinya Dechalert Quick Look Into Apple's AI Awakening Have you heard the latest? Apple, the company that usually plays it safe with new tech, just dove headfirst into the world of artificial intelligence (AI). Yeah, at their big developer conference, they showed off something called "Apple Intelligence." It's a bunch of AI tools that they say will make your iPhone, iPad, and Mac...
The Great Hong Kong Heist
By Aphinya Dechalert Brace yourselves, because deepfakes - those creepy AI-generated videos that can make anyone say anything - just leveled up from internet prank to multi-million dollar heist. A Hong Kong company got fleeced for $35 million, and here's the kicker: the scammers pulled it off by staging a convincing video call with a deepfaked CFO, complete with...
Get More Done by Embracing 'Good Enough'
By Aphinya Dechalert because perfection is a lie Listen, if you've ever lost sleep tweaking the spacing on a presentation deck or rewriting the same damn paragraph for the hundredth time, you're not alone. I've been there, sweating over every detail, thinking the world would implode if my work wasn't absolutely flawless.
Does facial recognition technology violate fundamental rights to privacy?
Welcome to the surveillance society Is the ability to scan a crowd and instantly identify individuals a powerful tool for security, or a gateway to an Orwellian surveillance state? Facial recognition technology forces us to confront this question directly. It promises convenience and enhanced safety but carries the chilling potential to erode our privacy and reshape society. Facial recognition technology (FRT) sounds like something straight out of a sci-fi movie.
My Code is Held Together with Duct Tape and Optimism
Shared Misery Builds Camaraderie Legacy code is like an old, abandoned house. It’s creaky, full of shadows, and you’re half convinced it’s haunted. Every time you think you understand how something works, a strange noise from a hidden corner sends shivers down your spine. You know you shouldn’t be there, but you can’t look away… Imagine stepping into an ancient tomb, walls covered in hieroglyphics you only half-understand.
JavaScript: Stockholm Syndrome in a Programming Language
The Love-Hate Relationship is real Love it or hate it, JavaScript is the undisputed king of frontend development. Sure, it has its fair share of oddities and historical baggage. But JavaScript’s ubiquity, thriving community, and (dare I say) charming flexibility make it a force to be reckoned with. They say developers have developed a sort of Stockholm Syndrome with JavaScript.
Why Your Models Don’t Always Work as Planned
Why Your Models Don’t Always Work as Planned when data science meets reality Data science promises to revolutionize decision-making by extracting insights from vast amounts of data. Yet, the path from raw data to those actionable insights is rarely smooth. Textbooks and tutorials paint a deceptively tidy picture, masking the hidden complexities that plague real-world projects. This is…
Low Code Will Not Replace Developers (But It Might Change Your Job)
Low Code Will Not Replace Developers (But It Might Change Your Job) The low-code hype machine is in overdrive, promising a utopia where anyone can build apps with a few clicks. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a place for low-code, but this isn’t the developer apocalypse. It’s about recognizing the limitations of these platforms, understanding where they can…
How to Fake it Till You Make it as a Developer
The Imposter Syndrome Playbook Ever stare at your screen, mind racing with doubts, convinced that any second now someone’s going to tap you on the shoulder and reveal you’ve been masquerading as a developer this whole time? That, my friend, is imposter syndrome. And if you’re in tech, chances are you’ve experienced this special brand of self-sabotaging fear. You know that nagging voice in your head?
Microservices is an eventual consistency trap
Microservices is an eventual consistency trap Maybe someone mentioned it but it certainly wasn’t part of the sales brochure Image from Unsplash We’ve been told it’s a thing of beauty — lean services, clear boundaries, promises of fast updates everywhere. So you sign your team up, make your own concoction, and prepare to unleash your microservice masterpiece on the world.
Microservices Promised Freedom but Delivered Dependencies
Microservices Promised Freedom but Delivered Dependencies Image: Unsplash Look, I get the appeal of microservices. They’re like the shiny, perfectly-packaged superfoods of software architecture — promising to make your development life leaner, faster, infinitely more flexible. Change one tiny thing, and the rest of your system won’t even bat an eyelash. Riiiight.
There Is No Work-Life Balance, Only Seasons
There Is No Work-Life Balance, Only Seasons Lessons learned from motherhood Image from Unslpash I used to gaze longingly at those Pinterest-perfect images of moms running businesses, rocking immaculate homes, and whipping up Pinterest-worthy kids’ snacks. #momgoals, right? Turns out, those images are as real as unicorns… or my kids willingly eating pumpkin.
LocalStorage - It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time…
But sometimes, IndexedDB is just better The promise of LocalStorage — a place to quickly stash data, easily accessible, right there in your browser — it’s the dev equivalent of finding a spare $20 in your pockets — an unexpected delight, followed by the urge to spend it on something fun (or at least, something that solves your immediate problem). For a while, it feels incredible. Need to save those user settings? LocalStorage. Quick cache to speed things up? LocalStorage.
Observability is an Illusion
More data doesn’t always equal more insights We’ve all been sold a shiny lie — more data equals better understanding. In the world of distributed systems, this obsession with observability has led us down a rabbit hole of dashboards, metrics, and an ever-growing pile of logs. We’re promised that if we just collect enough data, insights will magically appear. But you know what? Sometimes, it’s a giant pain in the ass.
If Excel Were a Person, We’d Be in a Love-Hate Relationship
If Excel were a person, we’d be in the most dysfunctional, love-hate relationship ever. It would be like dating that super smart, slightly condescending friend who makes you feel equal parts genius and utter moron. On the one hand, Excel is a damn miracle worker. It can organize my messy life, calculate complex budgets, and create charts that make me look like a data-driven mastermind. There’s a certain power in taming a massive spreadsheet, bending those tiny cells to my will.
If Caffeine Had a Warning Label, It Would Say “May Induce False Sense of Productivity.”
If caffeine carried a real warning label, it would read: “May induce a false sense of productivity… followed by an inevitable crash.” Because while that extra shot of espresso might feel like rocket fuel for your brain, the reality is often far less inspiring. I’m a self-proclaimed caffeine addict. My day doesn’t truly begin until I’ve had that first, glorious cup. It’s a ritual, a comfort, and sometimes, the only thing standing between me and completely collapsing back into bed.
Your To-Do List is Lying To You.
My to-do list mocks me from the kitchen counter. “Clean living room,” it demanded, with the smug confidence of a freshly sharpened pencil. In theory, that sounded doable. In reality, the living room resembled a post-apocalyptic LEGO exhibit, my energy levels resembled a deflated balloon, and the baby was on the verge of a meltdown. See, the thing about to-do lists is that they operate under the delusion of uninterrupted time.
If My Code is Burning, Should I Commit It or Just Walk Away?
Burn, baby, burn Alright, let me tell you about the time I spent a whole weekend trying to untangle a bug that was basically the software equivalent of a dumpster fire. It finally hit me on Sunday night — my code was completely broken. Like, unsalvageably screwed. Now, any sane developer knows that sometimes it’s better to start fresh rather than force some Frankenstein’s monster of a solution. But me? Oh no, I decided to commit that dumpster fire and bounce. It was my parting gift.
Why Your Microservices Architecture is Probably Overkill (And How I Learned to Love the Monolith Again)
The promise of tiny, independent services, each doing its own thing perfectly, sounds like developer nirvana. But you know what? Sometimes, it’s a giant pain in the ass. I fell hard for this hype. We were building a new system, and I was determined to do it the “right” way. Out went the trusty monolith, in came a swarm of microservices. At first, it felt amazing — so clean, so modular! Then reality hit. Turns out, the complexity didn’t disappear; it just shifted.
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