Why You Should Sometimes Reinvent the Wheel (And Why Your Team Might Hate You for It)

Why You Should Sometimes Reinvent the Wheel (And Why Your Team Might Hate You for It)

Let me start with a confession: I’ve reinvented more wheels than a medieval blacksmith having an existential crisis. And you know what? I regret absolutely nothing. If you’ve been in the software development game for more than five minutes, you’ve probably heard the sacred mantra echoing through conference halls and code reviews alike: “Don’t reinvent the wheel!” It’s delivered with the same reverence usually reserved for ancient wisdom, often followed by a knowing nod and the swift installation of yet another 47MB dependency to center a div....

September 18, 2025 · 9 min · 1743 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Building Google Chrome Extensions with JavaScript: From Zero to Hero

Building Google Chrome Extensions with JavaScript: From Zero to Hero

Ever wondered how those nifty little browser extensions work their magic? You know, the ones that block ads, translate pages, or remind you to drink water every hour (because apparently, we’ve devolved to the point where we need our browsers to keep us alive). Well, buckle up, because today we’re diving headfirst into the wonderfully chaotic world of Chrome extension development! Think of Chrome extensions as the Swiss Army knives of the browser world – compact, versatile, and occasionally sharp enough to cut yourself if you’re not careful....

September 17, 2025 · 17 min · 3509 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Creating Cross-Platform Mobile Apps with Flutter and Dart: Your One-Stop Shop for Multi-Platform Domination

Creating Cross-Platform Mobile Apps with Flutter and Dart: Your One-Stop Shop for Multi-Platform Domination

Picture this: you’re sipping your morning coffee, and your boss drops the classic bombshell – “We need this app on both iOS and Android… by next week.” Instead of spitting out your coffee and contemplating a career change, you simply smile and say, “No problem!” Welcome to the magical world of Flutter, where one codebase rules them all, and platform-specific nightmares are a thing of the past. The Cross-Platform Conundrum: Why Flutter is Your New Best Friend Let’s face it – maintaining separate codebases for iOS and Android is like trying to juggle flaming torches while riding a unicycle....

September 16, 2025 · 13 min · 2721 words · Maxim Zhirnov
The Creation and Evolution of C: How One Language Shaped Modern Programming

The Creation and Evolution of C: How One Language Shaped Modern Programming

Picture this: it’s 1972, bell-bottom jeans are all the rage, and somewhere in the hallowed halls of Bell Labs, a brilliant mind named Dennis Ritchie is about to accidentally create one of the most influential programming languages in history. Little did he know that his “simple” system programming language would become the grandfather of countless modern programming languages and the backbone of everything from your smartphone’s operating system to the servers powering your favorite websites....

September 15, 2025 · 12 min · 2410 words · Maxim Zhirnov
The Case Against Always Using Object-Oriented Programming

The Case Against Always Using Object-Oriented Programming

Picture this: you’re at a developer meetup, and someone asks about solving a simple data transformation problem. Without missing a beat, half the room starts sketching class hierarchies on napkins, talking about abstract factories and strategy patterns. Meanwhile, the other half quietly wonders if we’ve collectively lost our minds. Don’t get me wrong – Object-Oriented Programming isn’t the villain in this story. It’s a powerful paradigm that has given us incredible software systems....

September 15, 2025 · 10 min · 2113 words · Maxim Zhirnov