Vinit Kumar

I’m a Principal Engineer at Scalefusion and Django CMS Fellow passionate about solving meaningful problems and pushing tech boundaries. I love reading, listening/playing music, appreciating/making art, and enjoying a good cup of coffee.

Here are some recommendations from my current and past colleagues. You can check out my latest resume and Github profile. You can connect with me on twitter at @vinitkme or drop me an email atmail@vinitkumar.me.

I hope you enjoy reading my essays.

Redis Creator's Code Philosophy: 10 Programming Principles from Antirez

May 09, 2025 ⭐ featured

Coding tips from blogs of Antirez, the creator of Redis. Learn how to improve your coding following his principles

Balancing AI Tools in Development: A Practical Workflow Guide

May 07, 2025 ⭐ featured

How I think I would be using AI in my day to day life

Natural Coder

April 02, 2025 ⭐ featured

Returning to coding for enjoyment rather than external validation or pressure. Embracing my natural abilities while avoiding burnout and dopamine-seeking behaviors.

Oscura Vim - My New Favorite Dark Theme

March 28, 2025 ⭐ featured

A comfortable dark theme that's easy on the eyes

Mission Statement of Thorstel Ball

March 26, 2025 ⭐ featured

A collection of programming principles shared by Thorsten Ball in his 'Mission Statement' tweet. These thoughtful guidelines cover code quality, problem-solving approaches, professional ethics, and practical wisdom for software development.

Pour Your Heart Into It

March 15, 2025 ⭐ featured

A reflection on the challenge of fully committing to meaningful work after seeing an inspirational quote at Starbucks. Explores the struggle and value of deep focus while acknowledging that anything worthwhile requires dedicated effort.

No Cross Posting In Foreseeable Future

March 10, 2025 ⭐ featured

Why I'm stepping away from sharing my blog posts on social media platforms. This decision prioritizes deep focus on personal goals while avoiding the distractions and dopamine hits from social validation.

Simple PDF joiner to Join PDF Files on Mac

February 27, 2025 ⭐ featured

A free command-line utility that leverages macOS's built-in PDF joining capabilities without privacy concerns or upselling. Installation and usage instructions provided for combining multiple PDF files simply and efficiently.

2024 in Review

January 11, 2025 ⭐ featured

Just refecting on how 2024 was for me and what changes I brought in my life

Monthly Review

August 13, 2024 ⭐ featured

This past month had its ups and downs. We returned to a more structured workflow at work, and my wife and I kept up our walking routine. We need to improve our sleep and watch our spending. I’m working on motivation, improving my guitar skills, and aiming to read more while cutting down on social media.

Remote Work Success Guide: 7 Years of Practical Experience and Best Practices

March 26, 2020 ⭐ featured

The blog offers practical tips for efficiently navigating the challenges of remote work, particularly relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic. The author, drawing from seven years of remote work experience, emphasizes the importance of quality hardware, efficient software usage, and establishing a routine. The blog underscores effective communication practices, urging over-communication to bridge the gap in remote collaboration. It stresses the significance of documentation, testing, and delivering tangible results in a remote work setting. The author also shares insights from Mitchell Hashimoto, highlighting the transformative potential of remote work for those who adapt effectively.

A Somewhat Sane Guide for Software Development

February 06, 2020 ⭐ featured

A comprehensive guide to software development best practices based on 8 years of professional experience. Covers Git workflows, backend development principles, frontend guidelines, and DevOps considerations with practical examples and commands.

Influential Programmers: A Personal Tribute to 10 Open Source Leaders

January 23, 2020 ⭐ featured

A personal tribute to influential programmers who have shaped my career and coding philosophy. From CURL creator Daniel Stenberg to Python's Guido Van Rossum, these talented developers demonstrate excellence in their craft while inspiring others.

Job Security

March 11, 2025

How to attain this mythical Job Security

Professional Vim Configuration: Terminal and GUI Setup for Modern Development

March 11, 2025

A detailed look at my Vim configuration for both terminal and GUI environments

Daily Blog Number 7

February 18, 2025

Back on Tuesday

Daily Blog Number 6

February 15, 2025

Curious Case of a Saturday

Daily Blog Number 5

February 14, 2025

A Valentine's Day of Problem-Solving and Family Time

Daily Blog Number 4

February 13, 2025

Daily Blog About My Thoughts

Daily Blog Number 3

February 12, 2025

Daily Blog About My Thoughts

Daily Blog Number 2

February 11, 2025

Daily Blog About My Thoughts

Daily Blog Number 1

February 10, 2025

Daily Blog About My Thoughts

Developer's Guide to AI Tools: Real-world Experience with 5 Leading Platforms

February 03, 2025

AI revolution is here, and there is no denying it.

Creating Universal macOS Binaries: A Complete Guide to Fat Binary Generation

December 18, 2024

Easy way to generate fat binaries for mac

Building a Free Multi-Device Sync System for Obsidian with Git

November 26, 2024

How I Implement Multi Way Data Sync in Obsidian

New Job at ScaleFusion

November 18, 2024

Why and How I changed My Job

Non Negotiables

October 16, 2024

Non Negotiables I want to live by

Why Asking For Help Is A Crucial Skill

August 30, 2024

Ask for Help, Don't be Shy, It's A Good Thing!

Why Asking For Help Is A Crucial Skill

August 30, 2024

Ask for Help, Don't be Shy, It's A Good Thing!

Optimizing ZSH Performance: A Guide to Profiling and Fixing Shell Slowness

July 02, 2024

How I found the slowness in my shell and fixed it

New Week Start

July 01, 2024

Plan for the new week

Weekly Review (24-28 June 2024)

June 28, 2024

Just a log of how the week went

Favorite Coding Fonts in 2024

June 24, 2024

All my favorite coding fonts in 2024. All of these are free fonts and in my opinion are best in the genre.

Learning is Important

June 17, 2024

Reflecting on recent personal challenges and the importance of reading books to maintain mental well-being while working toward self-improvement.

Fire in my belly

May 10, 2024

A personal commitment to overcome self-imposed limitations and step out of my comfort zone. This renewed determination focuses on improving self-care, sharing ideas more freely, and making positive changes for myself and my family.

Leveling Up With Gary Bernhardt's Destroyallsoftware Series

July 31, 2023

This blog recounts the author's immersive learning experience with Gary Bernhardt's destroyallsoftware series, focusing on the malloc-from-scratch project. The author established a weekly routine to delve into various projects from the from-scratch repository, highlighting key insights gained such as a deepened understanding of memory allocation, improved debugging skills, and appreciation for software design principles. The post emphasizes the transformative impact of the series on the author's coding confidence and recommends Gary's resource for learners at all levels. The conclusion expresses the author's enthusiasm to continue exploring diverse programming concepts through this educational series.

The Changing Landscape of Free Online Services and Open-Source Software

July 04, 2023

The blog explores the transformation of free online services and open-source software over the past decade. It discusses the shift from free models to paid services, the bait-and-switch tactic in open-source software, and the challenges in funding strategies. The article emphasizes the need for users to contribute financially, view open-source as technical debt, and adapt to a changing economic landscape. Developers are encouraged to balance sustainability and accessibility. The conclusion highlights the importance of collaboration for a future where innovation and accessibility coexist in the evolving online world.

The Changing Landscape of Free Online Services and Open-Source Software

July 04, 2023

The blog explores the transformation of free online services and open-source software over the past decade. It discusses the shift from free models to paid services, the bait-and-switch tactic in open-source software, and the challenges in funding strategies. The article emphasizes the need for users to contribute financially, view open-source as technical debt, and adapt to a changing economic landscape. Developers are encouraged to balance sustainability and accessibility. The conclusion highlights the importance of collaboration for a future where innovation and accessibility coexist in the evolving online world.

Building Large Technical Projects: Lessons from HashiCorp's Co-Founder

June 02, 2023

Mitchell Hashimoto, co-founder of HashiCorp, shares insights on [building large technical projects](https://mitchellh.com/writing/building-large-technical-projects). Key tips include breaking tasks into manageable chunks, prioritizing real results, starting with feasible sub-projects, employing automated testing, showcasing regular demos, avoiding perfectionism initially, building for personal needs, and embracing incremental improvements for sustained progress.

Migrating to Neovim: A Developer's Guide to Modern Editor Configuration

May 24, 2023

The blog guides users through a smooth transition from Vim to Neovim, highlighting Neovim's improved performance, enhanced features, and better extensibility. It details the migration process, emphasizing the compatibility between Vim and Neovim configurations. The author's Neovim Lua-based configuration is provided, featuring a curated set of plugins, key mappings, and settings for a more modular and organized setup. The blog concludes by acknowledging the advantages of Neovim's init.lua configuration for those interested in exploring its features and flexibility.

Python Performance Optimization: Memory-Efficient Collection Handling

February 24, 2022

Practical techniques for optimizing memory usage when working with large data collections in Python. Demonstrates how to implement batch processing for lists and Django QuerySets with improved type hints and efficient iteration methods.

Coding principles every engineer should know

April 08, 2019

IMPORTANT: Cross posting from this medium article https://medium.com/@sschillace/coding-principles-every-engineer-should-know-b946b48cc946 since I do not like medium as a platform and I do not want to loose this port in matrix:) The post has been written by [Sam Schillace](https://medium. com/@sschillace) and all references to me/I is referenced to…

How To Manage Infra in 2019

April 05, 2019

Infra is one of the most host topics in the Software development these days. There are so many tools, so much to learn that very few people actually know what to do and what the best practises. Everyone wants to jump on the microservice bandwagon. However, it’s not as easy as it seems. I medidated quite a bit on this and have come up with these…

The Minimalist Developer: Maximizing Productivity with Fewer Tools

March 06, 2019

We are a big fan of tools. We use them daily in almost everything, but at one point in time, they pollute our mental space so much that we just forget to think and do as the tools dictate. A common example could be smart-phone. It was meant to keep us mobile and connected but now, it has become so dominant and addictive that it is more of a bane…

6 years of full time job

February 01, 2019

Today, I am completing 6 years of my full time employment with [Socialschools](https://socialschools. nl). It has been an incredibly long time and there has been highs and lows but mostly it has been a great experience writing code and having fun while doing it. I am very proud of the product I have helped build and make it succeed. There are…

How To Convert LaTex to PDF on macOS

January 16, 2019

Setup Mac for editing Latex

Lightweight LaTeX to PDF Conversion on macOS: A Minimal Setup Guide

January 16, 2019

Setup Mac for editing LaTeX

How to Use React with djangoCMS 3.5.2 and above?

May 24, 2018

How to get react working with latest djangoCMS

Integrating React with Django CMS: Solving Content Refresh Challenges

May 24, 2018

How to get react working with latest djangoCMS

Important Values

May 19, 2018

Some core values that I believe in

Four years of Full time job

March 01, 2017

Four years of full time work at Socialschools

Some New Learnings

June 22, 2016

Some new Learnings

Open Source

April 03, 2016

What Open Source has taught me

Why I Write Code

August 06, 2015

My Why

GPS Tracking on Android

April 16, 2015

Finding how you are tracked on Android

Advanced Mac Storage Cleanup: Command Line Guide for Power Users

April 16, 2015

How to cleanup Your Mac From Other Files

How it went?

March 11, 2015

Reflections on time spent when I was on Radio silence

Developer's Guide to Time Management: An 8-Hour Workday Breakdown

August 16, 2014

Time Management

7 Essential Practices for Writing Better Code: A Developer's Journey

July 20, 2014

How To Improve Code Quality Over Time

Implementing Read-Only Access in Django Admin: A Complete Guide

May 18, 2014

Guide to setup readonly mode for some users in Django admin

Complete Guide to Emacs: Setting Up a Modern Development Environment

May 04, 2014

A small guide to setting up Emacs

Be Awesome

March 27, 2014

Being an Awesome Human being

One Year at Job

February 08, 2014

My Experience in past on year

Setup Macvim for Maximum awesomeness

January 03, 2014

How did I setup macvim for super awesomeness

2013 Year In Review

January 01, 2014

How did I spent my last year

Simplicity in things

December 28, 2013

Why simplicity is so much important

Understanding JavaScript Classes: A Practical Guide to Prototypal Inheritance

December 07, 2013

About new projects

Buying New Books

December 03, 2013

New Computer Science Books

One Month Hacking

December 01, 2013

What I will hack this month

New Theme For My Blog

November 30, 2013

Why I wrote a new theme for my blog

I Have Grown

November 15, 2013

My growth as a developer

Life At A Startup

July 02, 2013

Learning

This Could Be Some Plan

June 21, 2013

Learning

Professional Ethics: 15 Principles for Success in Work and Life

June 16, 2013

Idea work Ethics

Maximizing Productivity: A Developer's Guide to Time Management and Focus

June 15, 2013

Things I think about

My Current Projects

June 04, 2013

What I am doing these days

My Setup

May 26, 2013

My Setup Interview

Single Machine Work-flow

May 07, 2013

How a laptop based work-flow boost productivity

Best Practices for Managing Open Source Projects on GitHub

April 30, 2013

About new projects

Django plugin open sourced

April 29, 2013

Examples and code for displaying images in posts.

Django plugin and Google command line project open sourced

April 27, 2013

Projects I recently worked on and open sourced

My First Flight

April 07, 2013

My first flight experience and vacation after months of work.

Building a Twitter Clone with Node.js: A Learning Project

March 27, 2013

Writing a Twitter clone in Node

Linux to Mac

March 24, 2013

How I converted from a Linux fan to Mac user

From Chrome Extensions to Career: My JavaScript Journey

March 24, 2013

Why I love JavaScript so much.

© 2025, Vinit Kumar