Turning Ideas Into Working Products
My name is Yuriy Zhar. I write about the things I build and the problems I solve. Passionate web developer who loves Elixir/Erlang, Go, TypeScript, and Svelte, with a deep interest in ML, LLMs, astronomy, and philosophy.
Featured Stories
Hand-picked articles that deserve your attention.
How I Ended Up Building My Own Multi-Domain, AI-Powered Blog Platform
I got tired of cloned WordPress SEO farms, so I built a multi-domain, multi-language blog platform in Elixir with fast SEO-optimized pages, integrated analytics, AdSense, affiliates and AI agents that research trends and draft high-quality articles automatically.
Yacht & Tours: A Fast, Clean Boat-Booking Platform Built for Real Business Needs
Yacht & Tours is a booking platform I built to make renting boats fast and straightforward.
Redomap: A Drop-In Map System That Actually Works in the Real World
Redomap is a lightweight, install-free map system you can drop into any website. Users scan a QR code and get maps, audio guides, and navigation instantly.
Building Arcatech custom CRM
I built a custom CRM using Elixir and Phoenix LiveView that uses AI to identify parts from photos, translate messages, and automate conversations with suppliers over WhatsApp.
Explore topics
Browse categories to dive into the subjects that matter most to your audience.
My Crazy Ideas
My Crazy Ideas is a space for quick posts about business, social, and tech ideas. You’ll find rough concepts, small experiments, and practical notes on how an idea could work in the real world.
My Thoughts
Just my thoughts about tech and AI, job market or in general about anything new i discover.
Projects & Work in Progress
A simple showcase of what I’ve built and what I’m building right now. Real projects, real challenges, and the solutions that came out of them.
System Design
System design stories and patterns focused on latency, scalability, and reliability, with concrete examples from booking engines, in-memory indexing, and Elixir/BEAM architectures.
Fresh from the Blog
Stay up to date with our latest stories, tutorials, and insights.
Developer Jobs Marketing in 2026: How AI Changes Hiring, Pay, and What “Good” Means
AI makes software output cheap, but it makes trustworthy engineering more valuable. In 2026–2027 expect heavy AI-driven code churn and market noise;
Trying Phoenix 1.8: My Honest Experience After the Switch
A personal walkthrough of adapting to Phoenix 1.8: DaisyUI, layout modules, async functions, custom modals, and JS tweaks for better UX.
How to Leverage Git Trees for Parallel Agent Workflows
Learn how to leverage Git trees to let multiple agents work on the same project in parallel using branches and worktrees for clean, conflict-free workflows.
Coding With AI Agents Without Losing Your Mind
In this article I share how I moved from random AI prompts to a simple flow for coding with agents: first make the agent understand the current code, then write a clear outline together, and only at the end let it change files. I explain how I use small guides stored in my project to teach the agent my style, how I reset context when chats get messy, and how I use the agent not just to write code but also to improve my own rules over time. It’s not about the “best” model, but about giving any model the right context and direction so it feels more like a sane helper and less like chaos.
Why You Might Not Need A Vector Database When PostgreSQL Can Power Your RAG
Want to build RAG without dragging a new vector database into your stack? In this guide we walk through how to turn plain old PostgreSQL into a serious RAG backend.
How I Ended Up Building My Own Multi-Domain, AI-Powered Blog Platform
I got tired of cloned WordPress SEO farms, so I built a multi-domain, multi-language blog platform in Elixir with fast SEO-optimized pages, integrated analytics, AdSense, affiliates and AI agents that research trends and draft high-quality articles automatically.
How I Ended Up Pricing Boats With Bitmaps And ETS
I wanted a booking search that felt instant, not “wait while I join five tables and cry”, so I ended up encoding availability and prices into tiny bitmaps and shoving them into ETS. Here’s how and why that works.
Yacht & Tours: A Fast, Clean Boat-Booking Platform Built for Real Business Needs
Yacht & Tours is a booking platform I built to make renting boats fast and straightforward.
Redomap: A Drop-In Map System That Actually Works in the Real World
Redomap is a lightweight, install-free map system you can drop into any website. Users scan a QR code and get maps, audio guides, and navigation instantly.
Building Arcatech custom CRM
I built a custom CRM using Elixir and Phoenix LiveView that uses AI to identify parts from photos, translate messages, and automate conversations with suppliers over WhatsApp.
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