Dev.to·Sunday, January 11, 2026

Dev.to - Sunday, January 11, 2026

10 stories~15 min

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Stories Covered

[Showdev] Blitzy: a lightweight 2D game engine in Kotlin

Lately i've been working on creating my own game engine in Kotlin. Why? i wanted to create my game, but whenever I found some engine for Kotlin, i constantly ran into problems: either it was too complex, or it lacked features, or the documentation was outdated. In the end, i decided - it's better to make my own, minimalistic one, but tailored precisely to my needs. that's how Blitzy appeared: a simple and minimalistic 2D engine. playing sounds and their control creating simple hitboxes keyboard

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Linux File & Directory Operations for DevOps — v1.0

Epic: Linux Foundations for DevOps File & Directory Operations linux/file-directory-operations/ Linux for DevOps — Execution Demos Introduction When working on real Linux servers in DevOps — whether in cloud VMs, CI/CD runners, or containers — you’re constantly creating, copying, moving, and removing files and directories. These basic file operations form the backbone of build scripts, deployment automation, and system maintenance. This post documents v1.0 of the File & Directory Operations wo

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Back to basics: a solid foundation for using AI coding agents in a monorepo

AI agents ship code fast — and they also ship entropy: inconsistent patterns, noisy diffs, and PRs that look done until CI disagrees. The fix isn’t "let the agent rewrite everything." It’s making correctness and consistency non-negotiable, so the agent can’t drift even when it improvises. You get there by building a boring, solid baseline the agent can reliably work within. If you only enforce three things, enforce these: Typecheck (correctness) pnpm typecheck a hard gate locally and in CI. Lint

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🚀 AWS 131: Scalable Data - Provisioning Private RDS with Storage Autoscaling

Hey Cloud Builders 👋 Welcome to Day 31 of the #100DaysOfCloud Challenge! Amazon RDS. Our goal is to set up a MySQL instance that is secure (private-facing only) and scalable (storage autoscaling). This task is part of my hands-on practice on the KodeKloud Engineer platform, which I highly recommend for anyone looking to master real-world DevOps scenarios. Provision a private RDS instance named devops-rds. Use the MySQL 8.4.x engine on a db.t3.micro (Free Tier eligible) instance. Configure the

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From Manual Mayhem to AI Magic: Building an Automated Alt Text Solution for WordPress

As developers, we build amazing things for the web. But sometimes, the "boring" parts of web development, like SEO and accessibility, get pushed aside. One of the most common culprits? Alt text for images. If you've ever managed a WordPress site with hundreds or even thousands of images, you know the pain. Manually writing descriptive, SEO-friendly, and accessible alt text for each one is a monotonous, time-consuming nightmare. That’s precisely the problem I faced, and it led me to build Alt Au

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Why Portugal Can Be Your Next Career Step

Moving abroad can be a challenging career decision. Beyond that, there are many factors to consider: culture, people, convenience, quality of life, and what a new place can offer. Every detail can make a significant difference when deciding to take such a step. In this article, we will discuss the benefits of moving to Portugal in terms of career growth and professional potential. It is a common experience for almost every IT professional to face the question of how to continue evolving in thei

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🎯Arrow Functions vs. Regular Functions in JavaScript

One of the most common sources of confusion in JavaScript interviews is how _this_ behaves differently in arrow functions vs regular functions. If you’ve ever wondered why _this_ prints _undefined_ sometimes — this guide will finally make it clear. this is Dynamic In regular functions, the value of _this_ depends on how the function is called, not where it is defined. const user = { name: 'Richa', greet: function () { console.log(this.name); } }; user.greet(); // Richa const greetCop

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What AI Actually Replaces in Software Development (Part 2: The Reality)

In Part 1, we established a core philosophy: AI Does Tasks. Humans Do Deals. But what does this look like in your daily standup? This is not a future prediction. This is a role shift already in progress. We are shifting from being "Coders" (producers of units of work) to "Validators" (signatories of outcomes). We are separating the execution from the commitment. AI is aggressively unbundling the development lifecycle. It is eating the "doing" and leaving you with the "deciding." The Task (AI): M

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Cloud 101 with AWS: From Concepts to a Real Serverless App

Cloud computing is often introduced through definitions, diagrams, and long explanations. But cloud really clicks when you build something real, something cool. Recently, I delivered a Cloud 101 with AWS workshop for computer science students at UMT Lahore, with one clear goal: No boring demos. No heavy theory. Just real cloud building. This post is a quick reflection on the session, what we built, and why this approach worked so well. Many beginner cloud sessions still focus on spinning up vir

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[TIL] A Three-Hour Interview with Ji Yichao, Chief Scientist at Manus (Acquired by Meta)

January 5th, 2026 (Full Video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqMtkgQe-kI]) This three-hour interview with Ji Yichao, Chief Scientist at Manus (later acquired by Meta), is truly a must-watch for many in the AI industry. I'll gradually add my key takeaways in the comments. For now, here's a quick rundown of what I found particularly noteworthy and worth sharing. As a serial AI entrepreneur, Ji Yichao shares insights from his decade of experience building AI startups. He discusses the evolution

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