While swimming in my library, flipping pages without actually reading a full paragraph — just hunting for something that would catch my attention — I stumbled on Symbol.

I had used it intentionally in my learner’s project back in April 2026. But this time, I was reading about JavaScript Symbols from a different perspective. A quieter one. A stranger one.

Talking about Symbols in JavaScript, I feel like most of us need to understand how they work — and why, in some quiet way, we all have to be Symbol in real life.

Brendan Eich gave us the bones of JavaScript, but Symbol wasn’t his doing. That gift came later, in June 2015, when Ecma International officially launched Symbol as part of ECMAScript 2015 (ES6).

It had been a work in progress by the brilliant minds of TC39 — the committee that shapes the language’s soul. All thanks to these gurus. They gave me a new lens.

Symbols in JavaScript are all about uniqueness.

You can create multiple Symbols with the exact same description — and they are all different.

In your browser console, try this:

Symbol("id") === Symbol("id") // false

The output whispers something profound: Everything is different. Even when they look the same.

It feels like seeing twins who appear identical — but with a deeper gaze, the difference becomes obvious. One smiles a half-second slower. One tilts their head when listening. The universe never duplicates. It only echoes.

There are seven primitive data types in JavaScript. Symbol is one of them.

String, Number, BigInt, Boolean, Undefined, Null, and Symbol.

“Symbol is a built-in object whose constructor returns a Symbol primitive — also called a Symbol value or just a Symbol — that’s guaranteed to be unique.”
— MDN Docs

And here’s where I paused mid-page.

What if we are all Symbols in human form?

Not copies. Not templates. Not generic instances of a class called Person. But primordial, unrepeatable values — carrying the same label, maybe, but fundamentally, irreducibly other.

Nature never creates duplicates. It iterates, yes. It remixes. But it never clones without a difference.

Does that mean programming is a simulation of reality?

Or does it mean reality has always been the original code — and we’re just now learning to read the syntax?

Francis Daniel gave me an idea I would never have thought about. At the Google IO Extended Lagos 2026, held on the 18th of July, during the session, we got to a part where we had to split into 3 groups. One for LLM, another for .. “Can’t remember right now (I will edit the blog when I remember) and the last group was us: The Designers.

In The Designers section, I paid attention like it was my first time, knowing fully well that there is always something new to learn at every meetup. Before I forget, I met Chukwuemeka again. I first met him at Flaskcon Africa 2025. He identified himself as “Kruse”, but he is typically igbo with the Ibo name “Chukwuemeka”. I got to know from LinkedIn.

Something I love about Chukwuebuka is how he carries himself like a soft egg just laid by a hen.. At Flaskcon, I was in the same group with him, like most meetups used to have a session for small breakups. Chukwuebuka made my group win a contest. The topic was something I had no idea about, moreover the hall was so cold that the only thought in my head was how to manage the cold in the air conditioned hall. I was trying not to be the most local man in the refrigerated hall.

This time, Chukwuemeka was part of the main organizers of Google IO Extended Meetup

Francis, The Designers group lead at the Google IO Extended was mumbling words that I was sure I was the only one paying attention. He has the low, calm voice of the customer service of a new bank. I had to read his lips to hear him. But, he was making real sense, he was talking about something I would be hearing for the first time.

Francis was talking about the possibility of developers, with the integration of Artificial Intelligence, designing a frontend that changes based on the interest and personality of the users.

That means, when my grandma is on Facebook, she interacts with Facebook from a personalized user interface and when an 8 year old is on Facebook, he sees something different, this time an interface that is personalized for him too.

“You mean an advanced form of darkmode?” I asked and I added “Like the way I would prefer dark-mode for all my apps?” I emphasized, he said “hmmmmm” pulling his scanty beard “yes” with more “hmmmm” in his sentence.

Francis must be this very quiet guy that would not argue with Lagos bus conductor when his change is not complete. I actually asked that question to make him understand that I needed to hear more of that idea. And I want him to speak louder.

We were about 8 in The Designers group. We all shared different views on the possibility of Francis’s idea not coming to reality.

10 days later, on the 28th of July, I am still wondering how Francics’s idea would be possible. It is my birthday and I hope to be in this future of dynamic and personalized AI powered user interface.

In 2008, in california, there was this beef between those who wanted same sex marriage and those who wanted regular marriage (between a men and a woman). The beef went beyond the homes and streets of California and travelled down into the decision baskets of the policy makers.

California being an organized community, made the people decide their destiny. There was a ballot where the citizens had to vote to express their opinion. They called this Proposition 8. Those, who I call sane humans, won this by about 52%. This means, as in 2008, we had more sane people in California.

The problem is, about 3 years later, the people of California needed to know about those who had donated to make Proposition 8 possible. This is where Brendah Eich got in trouble. In 2014, Eich was the CEO of Mozilla.

Brendah Eich who founded my favorite programming language, Javascript, had donated $1000 to Proposition 8 to make sure that marriage is always between a man and a woman.

When the details of those who made donations was made open, the LGBTQ and their supporters came against Eich. The backlash and too many talks become unbearable for Eich. Then in 2014, he resigned being the CEO of Mozilla.

Apart from founding Javascript and helping the tech community with technologies like Brave Browser, he is also trying to make our universe sane.

I want to use the opportunity to thank Brendah Eich and also wish him a blissful birthday. So much love Brendah!

Trust me, you have to understand what problem needs to be solved and what solutions will work. Reality goes beyond just building the best applications.

This June, I got a call from a strange number. The person on the other end announced that I had won the World Product Day competition. That was good news for the morning.

The competition question was simple:

What’s the most painfully real (and relatable) African problem that deserves a startup?

I could only think of building systems—my brain wasn’t seeing the real problems in society.

So I showed the question to my wife, and she said:

“A market announcement platform that tracks crop seasonality and aggregates real-time pricing data to help users purchase fresh produce at the lowest available rates.”

Note that my wife is not a developer, she does real life business. she understands her food stuff business and she understand the real life challenges.

Do you know what this means? It simply proves that many developers need to think about building real-life, achievable solutions—rather than building for building’s sake or just for the love of coding.

Amazon: Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love

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Building solutions for web browsers were beginning to feel old-school with the trend of Android Developer and iOS Developer. But trust me, web developers are not letting this game slide.

In 2015, Alex Russell and Frances Berriman came up with the idea which later became one of Google’s biggest innovations.

The duo noticed that some developers were beginning to build web solutions that would take full resources from the browser. These developers, including myself, want everything running on the browser.

I personally hate the tag “Android Developer” or “iOS Developer.” I build for the web, so don’t box me into an operating system. <h1>I am a proud web developer.</h1>

With the presence of mobile smartphones, users are becoming lazy; they want to click on installed apps and have them opened and running. They hate having to type “www.anything.com” on the browser tab.

Web developers need to meet up with the idea of installation, real-time notification, and user interaction that takes place only on native applications.

With good knowledge of PWA or Progressive Web Apps, web developers can now build installable applications without having to be loyal to the Android Play Store or Apple App Store.

The good thing is that the problem was solved with just 2 files: sw.js and manifest.json. Adding these files to your project folder and linking them to your index file will make your website or web app installable on any device.

📖 To understand how to convert your Web App into a PWA, click here

What are PWAs?

- Built with HTML, CSS and JavaScript
- Can be installed from browsers and app stores
- Have access to "low level" capabilities such as background sync
- Run in their own Window, outside of the browser, just like any other apphttps://t.co/JBCUgJCGTI

— PWABuilder (@pwabuilder) October 7, 2024

What makes Bill Gates’ technical legacy truly impressive is how he built it.

Long before modern luxuries like VS Code, AI assistants, or advanced debuggers, Gates wrote complex software with little more than raw logic and a terminal.

Gates wrote Altair BASIC without an automated debugger or a sophisticated code editor. There was no “Undo” button or AI to suggest the next line; every byte of memory had to be managed manually.

He often “ran” the code in his head to find errors before ever typing it out. His ability to visualize process management and networking logic meant he could spot mistakes in Windows kernel code just by reading it.

Writing code in the 1970s and 80s required a level of focus that is rare today. A single typo could crash an entire system, yet Gates was known for producing incredibly clean, efficient code on the first pass.

Gates proved that while tools make coding faster, true innovation comes from a deep, fundamental understanding of how logic works at the core.

Big news is coming to WhatsApp later this year, and if you’ve been looking for a more professional way to connect with your customers, this update is specifically for you.

WhatsApp is officially introducing usernames, a feature designed to prioritize privacy while giving your brand a much stronger identity.

Soon, you’ll be able to move beyond just sharing a phone number and instead use a unique handle like @yourbusiness to make it easier for new leads to find and message you directly.

For those of you who value privacy, this is a major win. When new customers reach out, they can choose to display their username rather than their personal phone number.

This lowers the barrier for people who might be hesitant to share their contact details right away, making your “Click to WhatsApp” strategies more effective than ever.

While your current chats and saved contacts won’t change at all, your business systems will need to be ready to support these new identifiers alongside traditional phone numbers.

As we head toward June 2026, now is the time to audit your CRM and internal workflows. You should be prepared to request phone numbers through WhatsApp’s upcoming built-in tools whenever they are strictly necessary for shipping or payments.

Most importantly, keep a close watch for the upcoming window to reserve your business username.

Securing your brand handle early ensures you stay discoverable and professional as the platform evolves.

It’s a simple shift, but it’s one that will make your business feel more accessible and secure for every new lead that comes your way.

Image source: Android Police

Happy Birthday to Jean-Baptiste Kempf, the man who looked at the flashy, over-designed world of media players and decided to give us a traffic cone instead.

As we celebrate the founder of VLC today, let’s address the elephant in the room: VLC is objectively ugly. As Android Police recently reminded us, the interface looks like a time capsule from 2001. It’s gray, it’s clunky, and the menus are a labyrinth of technical jargon. In an era of sleek “Glassmorphism” and “Material You,” VLC remains stubbornly, unapologetically bland.

But here’s the twist: We wouldn’t have it any other way.

While other players “look” premium but choke on a basic MKV file or demand a subscription for 4K playback, Jean-Baptiste’s creation just works. It doesn’t care about your aesthetic preferences; it only cares about your codecs. It is the rugged Swiss Army knife in a world of gold-plated butter knives.

We don’t open VLC to look at the UI. We open it to make the UI disappear so we can actually watch our content.

So, Jean-Baptiste, thank you for focusing on the engine rather than the paint job. Today, we’re raising a glass (and a traffic cone) to the greatest piece of “ugly” software ever written.

Photo by Axelle Manfrini, January 2021, Paris.

Tired of spending hours copying and pasting the same message to hundreds of contacts? This app revolutionizes your communication by enabling you to send fully personalized bulk emails and WhatsApp messages in just a few clicks. Whether you’re announcing a promotion, sharing important updates, or following up with leads, our platform handles the heavy lifting so you can focus on what truly matters—building relationships and growing your business.

Each message can be tailored with custom fields like names, dates, or specific offers, ensuring every recipient feels seen and valued. No more generic blasts or tedious manual work. The intuitive dashboard lets you upload contacts, craft your content, and schedule campaigns in minutes, while real-time analytics help you track engagement and optimize your strategy.

Perfect for digital marketers running large-scale campaigns, schools sending newsletters or event reminders, offices coordinating internal communications, and organizations of any size looking to streamline their outreach. Save time, reduce errors, and boost your response rates—all from one powerful, easy-to-use app.

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Source: Portrait of Chinua Achebe

In the book Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe’s Unoka was easy to dismiss. He sat in his hut playing his beautiful flute while other men farmed yams and went to war. He died in debt, carried to the Evil Forest.

But Unoka is alive today. He is writing code.

Walk into any tech company. You will find brilliant programmers who love the craft the way Unoka loved music. They stay up perfecting elegant functions no user will ever notice. They refactor code that already worked. They argue about tabs versus spaces with the passion of warriors.

But ask them to talk to a user. They grimace. Ask them to understand the business problem. They say it is not their job. Ask them to step away from the terminal and face the messy reality of why people actually need what they are building. They retreat into abstraction. They have become Unoka, sitting in a modern hut, playing a digital flute.

There is nothing wrong with loving your craft. The problem is when the craft becomes an escape from responsibility. Unoka said he hated the sight of blood. He said farming was not his gift. He played his flute instead. But when the lean season came, he begged for yams. When his family needed protection, he had no title. The flute did not save him.

Today, programmers say, “I just want to write clean code.” But code does not exist in a vacuum. Code solves problems. It runs businesses. It pays salaries. It serves people. When a programmer refuses to engage with anything beyond syntax, they are refusing the very reason their craft exists.

Achebe did not romanticize Unoka. He showed us a man who chose beauty over responsibility and paid the price. The flute was not evil. But playing it while the world demanded something else was a slow kind of death. Programmers today make the same choice. They choose the elegance of abstraction over the messiness of reality. They measure themselves by cleverness rather than impact. And like Unoka, they become irrelevant.

Love the code. But let it serve life. Talk to users. Understand the problem. Write beautiful software that actually helps someone. Engage with reality instead of hiding from it. Unoka’s music could have meant something if he had played it in service to his community instead of in escape from it. Your code can mean something too.

Rest in peace, Chinua Achebe. Your stories still speak.