Tech Wrapped 2025 #

This post is a personal wrap-up of my year in tech, the stack I relied on, the software that shaped my daily workflow, and the projects I built throughout 2025.

The goal isn’t to list everything I touched, but to document what actually mattered.

Tech Stack #

This year, my stack gradually converged toward tools that emphasized simplicity, control, and long-term maintainability.

Languages #

• Zig: I have always been a fan of C, but trying out Zig was a really good experience. I loved the syntax, its interoperability with C, and its strong support for bare-metal programming and embedded systems.
• Golang: I started getting into network programming and felt that C was a bit hard to work with for those use cases. That led me to Golang, which I really liked because of its goroutines and channels. Although I’m not a big fan of garbage collectors, I felt that sacrificing manual memory management for a better experience in hobby network programming was actually a good trade-off, in my opinion.

Software I Used & Loved #

Some software faded away quickly. The ones listed here earned a permanent place in my workflow.

Daily Drivers #

• River: I was a Hyprland user and wanted to try out a more lightweight window manager, as Hyprland felt a bit too much for me. While exploring lightweight options, I came across a window manager written in Zig. That’s how I found River, one of the more prominent projects built in Zig. After trying it out, I really liked it, especially its approach to configuration as a script and tools like riverctl.
• Ghostty: I didn’t really plan to switch terminal emulators from Kitty. I tried Ghostty just for fun, but ended up liking it enough to make the switch.

Notes and Documentation #

• Neorg Plugin: I was an Obsidian user for note-taking and really wanted to try an open-source alternative (FOSSification). While scrolling through Reddit, I came across the Neorg plugin in a subreddit. It’s essentially an Org-mode like system for Neovim, and I ended up switching to Neorg. I do realize that Org mode already exists, but I wanted to try something a bit more niche and tightly integrated with Neovim.

• Typst: I was using LaTeX for my college reports and for taking math notes, but its syntax has always been an obstacle that slowed me down. I came across Typst, which has a much easier learning curve and a far less overwhelming syntax. It follows a syntax style similar to Markdown, which made writing and iterating on notes much faster.

Contribution #

• Ly: Things I have contributed around 162 lines to Ly display manager
  • Improved Power Management Options: Added a hibernate option between sleep and brightness-down actions, giving users finer control over power behavior, especially useful for laptops. #867
  • Customizable Edge Margins: Introduced an edge margin option, allowing better layout control and improved ergonomics for different screen sizes and setups. #856
  • Battery Status Logic Fix: Fixed an issue where the battery status defaulted to an incorrect row when certain UI elements were hidden, ensuring consistent and predictable behavior. #845
  • Battery Status in the Top Bar: Added battery status support directly to the top bar alongside brightness controls, improving visibility and reducing the need for extra UI elements. #826

Projects I Built in 2025 #

Some small projects that I built this year

Completed Projects #

Simple 4bit Processor #

• Description: This was for a college project for the subject Digital System Design
• Tech Stack: Verilog, GTKwave
• Core Problem Solved: A really simple 4bit processor.
• What I Learned: Core VLSI perspective of a processor.

Multi Threaded File Downloader #

• Description: This is a multi-file downloader in Golang utilising Go channeling and Goroutines
• Tech Stack: Golang
• What I Learned: Golang in computer networks

GortScanner #

• Description: This is a really simple port scanner that I made in Golang
• Tech Stack: Golang
• What I Learned: Golang in computer networks

Ongoing / In-Progress Projects #

Fastsh #

• Goal: A POSIX-complaint shell that I am working on for my personal use cases.
• Tech Stack: Zig
• Current State: It can execute some basic builtins and executables in PATH.
• Remaining Challenges: Implement features like job management, conditional statements and much more.

Links #

• GitHub: https://github.com/embeddingbits/