I've spent 3+ years building and fixing all kinds of different software. The environment of development is changing, and so am I. Everyday I'm learning to design like never before, because generating code is no longer a bottleneck for startups, AND getting appealing design from their small team of engineers is.
full intro
I started out in late 2022 typing HTML, CSS and Javascript for 3 months, for absolutely nothing in exchange but curiosity. Curiosity led to further curiosity and I ended up learning the basics of C++ and soon, Python. All the tools I made back then looked pretty awesome, but they didn't get real users. That was the gap.
In 2024, I chose to do software engineering at NUST. I was never too focused on academics, nor research; I just did whatever seemed best long-term. Everyday, I would sit in front of my computer and code till my back started hurting. That's just how interested I was.
One of the tools/apps I built while exploring automation was pyautomate. It was a floating tool with its own language that would compile to a button, which you could click to automate things involving computer-use.
I built IRis, which started as a semester project. I explored a lot of the dotnet ecosystem while building it. It's still relevant today and has a bunch of users, even in this era of AI. I also casually spent a lot of time building gitree to sharpen my Python skills and contribute to the open-source community.
I made a finance tracker with the entire codebase hand-typed, to get a solid grip on Tailwind CSS flexbox and responsive design. Feeling proud to say the approach paid off; I can now make UI changes without wasting a lot of tokens asking
Claude.In my fourth semester at NUST, I switched from the flaky Copilot and Antigravity combo to Cursor Pro and the Claude web interface. Claude would often run out of limits, so I made instructions for it. Since then, it gives short, to-the-point responses and almost never hits the caps.
At some point, I got convinced the tools I used could be upgraded further. I switched to what I call the Claude ecosystem: Claude desktop app, Claude Code for projects, the Claude extension in my browser, Claude Design, and the Claude app on my phone. It all fit together so seamlessly it felt more natural than my existing setup. So I switched.
If you are looking to contact me, please do so via email at shahzaibahmad6789@gmail.com