Independent developer · building in the open

Hi, I'm building yydev.

I'm a solo developer. I make small, sharp tools, learn things out in the open, and write about how AI is actually changing the way we build software — the useful parts, not the hype. This is where all of that lives.

Recent writing

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AI · Learning

How I'd learn AI from scratch in 2026

The order I'd actually go in if I were starting over: what matters early, what to skip, and why building beats watching.

AI · Prompting

Getting better answers out of AI

Nine things I do that reliably make ChatGPT, Claude, and other models more useful — with before-and-after examples.

Tools

15 free tools I keep one click away

The formatters, converters, and testers I reach for most as a developer, grouped by the job they do.

AI · Concepts

How language models actually work

Tokens, training, and prediction, explained the way I finally understood it. No maths, no hand-waving.

Why this exists

I've kept a personal site for years. It's the one corner of the internet that's entirely mine — no feed, no algorithm, no metric I'm supposed to grow. yydev is a workshop with the door left open. Poke around, take what's useful, and email me when I'm wrong.