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Abhinav Upadhyay
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Abhinav Upadhyay
@abhi9u
NetBSD Dev | Python Internals, AI, compilers, databases, & performance engineering | Join 16k+ other readers at blog.codingconfessions.com
blog.codingconfessions.com
Joined July 2009
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Jun 20
    So I wrote about this C trick used by Git in an article. Apart from explaining the trick itself, I also explored the history behind this change. It turns out it was added by Junio Hamano himself to circumvent a similar unreachable code warning when calling sigfillset. I also
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    May 30
    Today, in weird C code tricks, I show you an example from the source of git. I was poking around the its source code, and something caught my eye. It was a folder named compiler-tricks, and it had only one file called not_constant.c with only one line of code: int
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Jan 18, 2025
    How do you fit a 250kB dictionary in 64kB of RAM and do lookups? For reference, even gzip -9 cannot compress this file beyond 85kB. In the 1970s, Douglas McIlroy at AT&T had the same challenge when implementing the spell checker for Unix. Instead of relying on generic
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    May 21, 2025
    I see possibilities.
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    287K
  • user avatar
    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Apr 5, 2025
    This hits hard. I've struggled to make it on substak because of all the crazy RBI regulations. So crazy that stripe left India. Receiving money for any consulting gig directly in the bank requires explaining five people at the bank why that transaction happened. Getting GST is
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    Mahima Jalan ماهيما جالان
    @MahimaJalan2
    Apr 5, 2025
    After finishing my Master’s in Journalism, I decided to start my own agency and create jobs instead of working for someone else. But soon after, I got a serious reality check. My GST application was rejected, not due to any issue in paperwork, but because the officers
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    291K
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Mar 6, 2025
    Everyone recommends reading research papers, but few talk about how to do it effectively. Like any skill, it gets easier with time, but starting out can be daunting. It helps to know that the struggles you face are common, and that there are ways to overcome them. I wrote about
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Dec 7, 2023
    "a + b", this one line of Python code executes thousands of lines of C behind the scenes. My latest article explains what goes on in the CPython runtime to execute this seemingly simple operation. You will learn about: - Dynamic dispatch implementation in CPython - What is the
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Dec 5, 2023
    The next article in the CPython internals series is ready (pending edits). It stands at 1800 words & 13 annotated code listings. All that just to explain, what goes on when you run `a + b` in Python. Coming soon to the subscribers of Confessions of a code Addict (link in bio).
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Apr 14, 2025
    Some of the best engineers I’ve met share one thing in common. They don’t just learn how a system works. They understand why it was built that way. That kind of understanding doesn’t come from scrolling past summaries or skimming neatly labeled diagrams. But that’s how a lot of
    131K
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Aug 26, 2024
    This looks like an excellent course on computer architecture from ETH Zurich. It seems specifically focused on memory and very up-to-date wrt what is being used in the industry:
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Dec 26, 2024
    You thought systems programmers don't need to know math? Linux kernel developers prove you wrong by contradiction—they prove corollaries in their comments.
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Aug 10, 2025
    The point that Linus makes is right but his style is not. It sets the wrong precedent for the younger generation to be just as toxic as this. You can criticise the code without being abusive. I've seen enough quotes saying this is based, it is not. If I tell my colleague I will
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    The Lunduke Journal
    @LundukeJournal
    Aug 9, 2025
    Today, Linus Torvalds told a Google engineer that his code (updating RISC-V support in the Linux kernel) is “garbage” which “makes the world actively a worse place to live”. Adding that the Google engineer’s code needs to “get bent”. As you might have guessed, Torvalds has
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Dec 8, 2024
    What every systems programmer should know about concurrency—a very dense but impactful read. Things like lock free and wait free synchronisation techniques will stop seeming like black box if you understand this.
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Sep 20, 2023
    Turns out folding a piece of paper in specific ways can result in a Turing complete device open.techwriters.info/apieceofthepi/…
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Dec 6, 2024
    Book recommendation: Understanding the Linux kernel. Very few books on operating systems provide this level of depth. It is very specific to X86 and that too 32 bit, but still many details are still relevant. The kernel code has also changed significantly in these 20 years but
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    Abhinav Upadhyay
    @abhi9u
    Nov 6, 2023
    To lighten up your Monday
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