Ravi S. Iyer: Software Development

The blog posts timeline is chronological. Summary Blog Posts Timeline Summary: Static School Landing Page Website Development (Jan – Feb 2026 off-and-on) Design of mainly static Next.js school website with free hosting that can evolve into dynamic full-stack web application (paid hosting) (Created: Jan 17, 2026 | LU: Jan 19, 2026) Outlines a pragmatic design using Next.js on GitHub Pages with a zero-hosting-cost model for small schools. Building Test Static School Website: Next.js static export vs Plain React, Using ThemeWagon Si-Education Next.js Template - Part 1 (Created: Jan 17, 2026 | LU: Feb 8, 2026) Initial experiments with trimming an educational Tailwind CSS template to create a minimal mentor site. Creating proprietary modifications to MIT license ThemeWagon Si-Education Next.js Template Source Code (Created: Jan 19, 2026 | LU: Feb 8, 2026) Technical discussion on modifying licensed templates and the implications for individual customer licensing. Building Test S...

Over past few days, I viewed most of this video:  Beyond Vibe Coding: Essential Python Concepts for Effective AI-Assisted Programming , 53 mins, published Nov. 2025. It is by an academic (computational chemistry, IIRC) from San Jose state university. It is aimed at entry level students. So most of the video is pretty basic stuff. However, it gives decent exposure to Python and using Python in Google Colab. It also shows how to pick up python code from an AI chat (ChatGPT IIRC) response that had some computation, and use that in Google Colab. I very much liked the introductory part of the video where the author talks of how coding skills help even with AI assisted development. Some of this introduction is also mentioned in the description part of the Youtube video page.

Last updated on 14 Mar 2026 13 March 2026 I had explored using AntiGravity some days back. One thing I noticed is that it was slower to startup than VSCode. So I wanted to have VSCode setup to use Gemini with associated extension and thus be able to benefit from my Google Pro Plan in VSCode. Also I wanted to Gemini CLI to be setup. Gemini Code Assist VSCode extension Extension ID: google.geminicodeassist and publisher is Google. Took long to install and failed to install first time. Airtel conn. quota got probably exhausted. Switched to Jio. Trying again. Started at around 20:08 . Now it is 20:11 ... It got done a little before 20:24! Speed seemed to be 4 to 6 Mbps typically. In Gemini Code Assist (GCA), I signed in with my rG Google a/c. It showed a message about not being able to access pro-snowfall-xhnws (which turned out to be some Google Cloud project). I ignored it. It does not show me Google 3.1 Pro model (it seems to be defaulting to Google 2.5 Flash). [IIRC, it did show me Goo...

Last updated on 13 Mar 2026 Towards the end of last month (Feb 2026), with my Jio 4G mobile recharge, I got a free offer of Google AI Pro plan for 18 months which I accepted.  As the suite of tools provided by Google AI Pro with more powerful features and higher limits than in free tier, were quite new to me, I used the help of Gemini (under AI Pro plan) to navigate through them from a software developer's viewpoint. I also took some inputs from ChatGPT free tier. In parallel, I also tried out some of these tools for quite simple tasks. All these chats and trials were done in end Feb. 2026, IIRC. In the same period, I also put up many blog posts covering these chats and trials. Today, 12 Mar 2026, I added section links to some of these posts. Note that most if not all of these tools are also available in the free tier, but with lesser capability and smaller limits. This post is an index of all the abovementioned posts and section links (jump links) in th...

Dark Reader extension is very helpful in giving dark mode in Blogger Compose window. If we know exactly in which use cases Dark Reader injects its CSS and data attributes bloat to the post HTML and in which use cases it does not, we can avoid the former and use only the latter. The main reference for this section is my post: Discussion and Analysis of Dark Reader Chrome extension test post with Gemini assistance . With Dark Reader extension in "On" state: No Bloat : Typing directly in Compose mode in a div block which does not have Dark Reader styles (--darkreader-) or custom data attributes (data-darkreader-), does NOT inject Dark Reader styles and custom data attributes in the post HTML. So creating a fresh div block in with few dummy characters in 'Edit HTML' mode and then switching back to Compose mode and typing within those dummy characters should result in no Dark Reader styles and data attributes being injected. No Bloat : Special case of above is Compose mode...

Last updated on 11 Mar 2026 20:34, 06 March 2026 Me: Can VSCode terminal with an ongoing session be made a separate window in Windows 11 GSAI (Google Search AI): ... Method 3: Command Palette Open the terminal (Ctrl+`). Press Ctrl+Shift+P to open the Command Palette. Type and select: Terminal: Move Terminal into New Window.  ... Me: Command Palette method worked. Drag and Drop did not work, and Context menu command did not show Move Terminal into Editor Area. ... GSAI said that two terminals are needed for one or both of above methods to work. Confirmed that with two terminals open, I could drag one of the terminal icons on right sidebar onto editor which moved it to an editor tab. Then I could use context menu on tab to move it to a separate (floating) terminal. ------ =================== 14:41, 10 March 2026 Me (on Google Search): VScode temporarily turn off tooltips while typing GSAI (Edited): To temporarily turn off or delay tooltips while typing in Visual Studio Code, you can...