Added on: Friday, 30 July, 2021 | Updated on: Sunday, 24 August, 2025
Hello there!
My name is Saksham Mittal. I have been fascinated by computers from a very early age. It’s pretty mind-blowing to imagine that this one tool can do so many different tasks and how seamless it is to move from one task to another, The number of possibilities only increases once someone is introduced to scripting, programming, etc. Because of this, I’ve learned numerous skills, like:
Programming (in Python, C, Golang, Rust and some C++)
Basic web design (I’m hoping this website helps me learn more). I like to build small, semantic websites that use little or no JavaScript.
I have also dabbled in building a React Native based app for Android and iOS.
Contributing to open source projects. While I contributed in small capacity to various big and small projects, I was notably involved in the Arti project from the Tor Project during 2023 as a part of Google Summer of Code 2023, where I learned a lot about open source development, helped find and fix bugs in the code and generally had a good time. I have also worked on the Chromium browser for a decent amount of time in a private capacity and have also submitted patches for merging upstream.
Familiarity with Linux. I like Linux due to it’s developer-friendly nature and a nice way to get more performance on low spec machines, not to mention the free software philosophy. I am currently running NixOS due to its declarative nature and the extent to which I have been able to modify my system, far from the configurations most other distributions ship with. It also has easily the largest package list of any Linux distro.
Some basic shell scripting, Markdown, etc.
Privacy and security: this is a recurring subject for me, I like learning more about how to safeguard my information and prefer self-hosting my digital infrastructure and not trusting external servers I have no control over. I use MicroG on my phone every day to prevent the creepy Google Play Services from collecting and sending data on my walking habits and other creepy info every four minutes.
Networking; I have worked on a peer to peer file transfer program that will enable users to transfer files in real time between each other without having to route all their data through a central server so as to better utilize the excellent broadband infrastructure that fiber connections bring to end users and to bypass pricey storage tiers for sharing files amongst friends and family.
This project even used a custom reliable data transfer protocol built on top of UDP so I can learn more how other such reliable networking works and implementing their solutions myself
I’ve been learning more about how computers work as time goes on, and will write more about this here. It’s really a fascinating subject. I hope to build some cool software myself, learn more and share some tips/tricks/guides on how I did so.
I have successfully completed a B.Tech degree from the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra in Information Technology.
There are really good resources offered on the Internet if you know where to look, and I hope I can help point you to those places, or even become a source myself.
I wanted to improve my writing and communication skills, and blogging is a pretty good way of doing so.
Learning more about web technologies (as previously mentioned).
Highlighting cool technology and documenting how I built certain projects, challenges I faced, etc.
To carve out a space for myself on the Internet.
These are mainly learning resources that I have used myself and have found to be pretty good.
Teach Yourself CS: This website contains the best recommendations about resources to learn Computer Science, the subject. It contains both book and video lecture recommendations, so both types of learners can benefit. Use this to get a good command of the theory (and some basic implementation details) of computers.
Harvard CS50: I don’t exactly recommend this course for absolute beginners since it’s a little heavy on the details, but for someone who’s done with the beginner stages and has mastered their first language, this is a pretty good cross-section of programming. The exercises are not your typical “print 5 numbers in a row” questions, but are pretty cool mini projects in themselves, like photo filters, recovering deleted images from an SD card etc.
Build Your Own X: This GitHub repo houses ideas and links to guides to, er, build your own X, whether that be a game, an operating system, or something in between!
edX: They offer courses from some of the best colleges in the world for free (a small portion of the courses are paid, and some features are locked behind a paywall like getting certificates, but a lot of the knowledge here is freely available).
You can email me at hi AT gotlou DOT com.
Email me about:
Suggestions on the website (formatting, accessibility issues etc.). I would really like to learn more about web development.
Any corrections I need to make. I always love to learn from my mistakes!
Don’t email me about:
If you want end-to-end encrypted communication with me, you can also use Matrix by clicking on this link to contact me.
If you know me personally, or have my phone number, consider reaching out to me on Signal rather than other similar platforms.
Click here to get my public key for encrypting email communications. If you don’t want to go through the hassle, consider using Matrix to get in touch with me, or Signal in case you have my phone number.
I maintain a SourceHut account where I post most of my interesting projects. I like SourceHut due to it’s sparse but functional UI, the non-requirement of JavaScript, and the renewed emphasis on using mailing lists, which allows people with no accounts to easily contribute to other projects. This website is also hosted on SourceHut Pages.
I also have a GitHub account where used to host my code. I am just using it as a mirror and to work on projects hosted on Github, and same goes for my GitLab account where I mirror my code as well. I do this in order to keep a backup of my projects in case anything ever happens to any one of the accounts.
All opinions stated on this blog are mine, and not of my employer. This is a personal website.
This website was made using Markdown, Pandoc, and a custom program to automatically add headers and footers (including this one) to any document that’s published here.
Copyright © 2025 Saksham Mittal. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise stated, all content on this website is licensed under the CC BY-SA 4.0 International License