https://kothariji.in/writings/ Posts and notes by Dhruv Kothari, a software engineer. en https://kothariji.in/writings/build-your-own-json-parser/https://kothariji.in/writings/build-your-own-json-parser/Fri, 23 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTYour code calls JSON.parse all the time. This tutorial shows what happens inside it, and how to build a JSON parser yourself. https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/six-hours-end-to-end/https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/six-hours-end-to-end/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTSo today, here is what I did. Slack/Looms → intent, personas & conversion gaps → journey → Figma MCP → critique with Impeccable → built with Claude Code. Used @coreyhainesco's marketing-skills throughout. 6 hours, end-to-end. What a wild time to be a curious engineer. 👨‍💻 https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/noticing-beauty-and-pain/https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/noticing-beauty-and-pain/Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe same mind that notices extraordinary beauty often notices ordinary pain more vividly. Maybe that's the price of seeing the world a little differently. https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/jack-of-all-trades/https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/jack-of-all-trades/Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTI can sense a shift. A move toward "jack of all trades." Frontend devs are picking up backend work. Backend devs are finding it easier to handle UI. Curious devs are leaning into becoming generalists. One thing's clear - curious devs will climb faster. https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/taste-is-subjective/https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/taste-is-subjective/Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTFrontend is all about design, and design is all about taste. But taste is subjective. That is exactly why AI is not fully there yet. https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/redis-copy-on-write/https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/redis-copy-on-write/Thu, 06 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMTRedis Copy-on-Write (COW) snapshot optimization! 💾 Instead of duplicating all data for a snapshot, Redis marks data as read-only and only copies modified data. This minimizes memory usage and boosts performance. Efficient and clever 💡 https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/hop-by-hop-headers/https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/hop-by-hop-headers/Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMTHop-by-hop and end-to-end headers in HTTP! 🌐 Hop-by-Hop: Processed by each intermediary (like proxies) and not forwarded (e.g., Connection, Keep-Alive). End-to-End: Carried the entire path to the final recipient (e.g., Content-Type, User-Agent) https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/repl-read-eval-print-loop/https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/repl-read-eval-print-loop/Fri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 GMTRepl (in programming) stands for Read–eval–print loop https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/fragment-identifier/https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/fragment-identifier/Tue, 14 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT(very late 🥲) The fragment identifier, or the part of a URL that comes after the # symbol, is not sent to the server as part of an HTTP request and is not directly accessible on the server side https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/june-1-universal-birthday/https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/june-1-universal-birthday/Sat, 23 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMTJune 1 is considered a universal birthday date for people who have forgotten their actual birth date. 🥲 https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/usr-unix-system-resources/https://kothariji.in/writings/notes/usr-unix-system-resources/Sat, 20 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT/usr in Linux file system stands for Unix System Resources and not user. https://kothariji.in/writings/late-night-thoughts-placements/https://kothariji.in/writings/late-night-thoughts-placements/Wed, 05 Jan 2022 00:00:00 GMTWritten at 2:36 a.m. A preparation strategy in four verticals, and the things I wish someone had told me a year earlier. https://kothariji.in/writings/syntaxmeets-the-curious-saga/https://kothariji.in/writings/syntaxmeets-the-curious-saga/Sun, 21 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMTHow three of us built a real-time collaborative coding room during the pandemic: React, Socket.IO, Express, and a drawing pad for the algorithm. https://kothariji.in/writings/cpp-tips-for-competitive-programming/https://kothariji.in/writings/cpp-tips-for-competitive-programming/Thu, 11 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMTSeven things that save time in a contest: bits/stdc++.h, endl versus \n, auto, range-based loops, string conversions, cctype, and a code visualizer. https://kothariji.in/writings/kick-off-competitive-programming/https://kothariji.in/writings/kick-off-competitive-programming/Thu, 19 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMTWhere to start, which platforms to practise on, and the five things a beginner should keep in mind.