Abu Ashraf Masnun

Python is my most favorite language. When I first learned the language, I loved it so much that I started promoting the language in my country. I gathered some other early adopter of the language and formed "Python Bangladesh" - a voluntary group of people helping others learn and use the language. In my professional career, I have built numerous apps / systems / services with Python. Django is my favorite web framework, Django REST Framework is my favorite for building APIs. But I have also used Flask where I didn't need all the batteries. I have built large email / sms delivery platforms using Celery that scaled for a million user daily. I have learned and written about asyncio - some of my most popular answers on StackOverflow cover the topic. When it comes to a choice - I happily pick Python over others. 

I love Golang. It is my second favorite language despite it's tiresome error handling practices. I love the concurrency primitives and the fact that it is super easy to build a concurrent system in Go. Python promised me - "there should be only one way to do things" but it feels like Go truly fulfilled that promise. While the built in http functionality works just fine, I usually choose Chi as my preferred router. I usually don't use any ORMs but for SQL databases, I like the sqlx library - makes things easier. I have seen the awesome "go-kit" package for building microservices and would love to use it in a production app in future. In my experience, Go has been really fast, very reliable and easily scalable to serve tons of requests. If I needed to build a large, distributed system with scalability in mind, I would happily pick Go. 

I started with the usual MEAN stack but over time my choice of technology changed. Express is great but I love Koa because it's so light weight and let's me pick what I need. I have learned and used TypeScript because I understand the benefits of having types and appreciate the productivity gains from it. For background tasks, I used to use Kue but later on moved to Bull. 

I have done PHP for over 7 years in my early days. I have worked with Laravel, Symfony2, CodeIgniter and few other web frameworks over the time. I have worked on several projects based on WordPress and Silverstripe. I have built some interesting systems with PHP but also did some crazy stuff which I regret till date. I do not exactly hate PHP but I acknowledge it's limitations and actively avoid using it these days. Having said that, I also understand the benefits PHP brought to the table and the enormous contribution it has to the growth of the web. I respect the community and what they have achieved but it would require a very specific use case to make me choose PHP today. 

I started off with jQuery, then learned AngularJS. It was pretty great but then I moved on to the React eco system because I didn't like the direction of Angular with 2.0. Besides the frameworks, I have actively tried to use plain old JS anywhere possible. But having been a backend developer most of my career, I would not claim to be an expert in this area. But I consider myself full stack since I have built several front end applications (SPAs) and have a good understanding of and work experience in the front end technologies. 

I can reuse popular solutions like Bootstrap or use ready made themes to create something that works and looks well. But I am not a designer, I would never be able to produce anything visually stunning by myself, without any third party libraries. My friends have also repeatedly emphasised on how my choice of colors and sense of beauty sucks. So, yes - I am not a good front end designer but I can jump in if you need a make shift design to get things going for the time being. 

I started with Subversion (SVN) but I have worked with Git most of my life. I am quite familiar with modern day Git usages. I am also used to using Git flow for development. 

I have been setting up and managing Linux servers for quite some time. I have been mostly configuring LAMP stack or nginx with Python / Nodejs. I have also worked with Varnish and HAProxy. I am quite familiar with AWS / Rackspace / Azure services. I have prior experience with deploying client sites on all of them. Ubuntu and Debian are on top of my choice list. However, I am comfortable with CentOS or other fedora core based systems as well. I am familiar with tools like Chef / Ansible and can write automation tools for your cloud infrastructure. 

I have work experience with MongoDB and Redis. I have played with RethinkDB too. I have used Redis for various purposes - caching, message queueing, simply storing data etc. I have plans to learn CouchDB in the future. 

I regularly use Vagrant machines for my local environment setup. I have recently started using Docker when needed. I also have experience with Bitnami stacks. 

I have done my graduation and masters in business. I am the co-founder of Google Business Group, Khulna. I have worked with many local entrepreneurs and helped them grow with modern technologies. I have also worked as product co-ordinator in one of my previous jobs. I understand how the business processes work and strive to add values to the people I work with and work for.