The Huawei ICT Competition 2026–2027 (Northern Africa) Innovation Track is now open for registration.

This track is about using new technology to solve real problems.
You can register until December 2026.
The first exam is November–December 2026, the national final is January 2027, the regional final is February–March 2027, and the global final is May 2027.

Please read the rules and then register here:
https://e.huawei.com/en/talent/#/ict/innovation-details?zoneCode=026902&zoneId=98269713&compId=85132021&divisionName=Northern%20Africa&type=C002&isCollectGender=N&enrollmentDeadline=undefined&compTotalApplicantCount=6

@CTBEsoftwareengineers

✨Something I noticed working with AI agents: they don't know when they're wrong ✨

A human dev usually pauses mid-task when something feels off "wait, this doesn't look right." An agent doesn't have that instinct. It'll confidently keep building on a wrong assumption for way longer than any person would, because nothing tells it to stop and doubt itself.

That changed how I use them:
🔹I stopped asking for a whole feature in one shot big prompts = big bugs, and you can't tell which half broke
Now I ask for one function/module at a time and actually read it before moving on

🔹After it generates code, I ask "what could break this?" it often catches its own edge cases when prompted, even though it won't on its own

♦️Exception: repetitive, well-worn stuff boilerplate, CRUD, standard configs. Good models nail this consistently, no babysitting needed. Save the scrutiny for anything new or non-trivial.

The bigger lesson: catch a bad assumption early, or you'll spend way more time unwinding it later than you would've spent checking it upfront.

Hope this helps☺️
@CTBEsoftwareengineers

🏫 Campus Review: CTBE – 5 Kilo Campus

CTBE stands for the College of Technology and Built Environment. It's home to Engineering, Architecture, and other related fields like Construction Management.

It's split across two campuses: 5 Kilo and Lideta. (The two used to be separate colleges but are now merged under one shared Dean, even though the campuses are geographically apart.)

Today, we're covering 5 Kilo campus.

📍 5 Kilo Campus has 6 undergraduate schools
(here "school" means an undergraduate department within the college)

Ranked from most to least competitive to get into:

1. Software Engineering
2. Electrical Engineering
3. Biomedical Engineering
4. Mechanical Engineering
5. Chemical Engineering
6. Civil Engineering

How you get placed at 5 Kilo:

- Your entrance exam score + first semester grade are averaged. Meet the cutoff point, and you're placed at CTBE right after first semester. But you won't choose a specific department yet. You'll take common courses (pre-engineering) first.

- To get into a specific department, it's your first + second semester average combined. Example: 3.5 in first semester and 3.8 in second semester averages to 3.65/4 that's about 91.25%. Last year, that was enough for Mechanical Engineering (4th most competitive department).

- Software Engineering is the most competitive , especially for non-sponsor students.

👉 Full department allocation breakdown coming in a future post. Stay tuned.

🔎 Other notes on 5 Kilo:

- Size: Relatively small perimeter-wise. nowhere near as big as 6 Kilo.

- Dorms: Located outside of the campus, across the street (unlike other campuses, where learning facilities and dorms share the same compound). Still, the dorms are more spacious and better kept than 6 Kilo's. Also there's a chance your Dormitory might be at 6 kilo. So you learn at 5 kilo but your dormitory is at 6 kilo.

- Library: Located at 5 Kilo, open all night.

- Food: Lounges available at both the campus and dorm buildings. Government cafeteria available at the dorm compound if you're a cafe user.

- Wi-Fi: Works decently on campus, but basically non-existent in the dorms.

- Location( outside of the uni): there're lots of Fast food, restaurants, and supermarkets all nearby.

- Labs: Every department has labs, but how often you actually use them depends on the department

Next we will post a detailed description about the departments so don't forget to join @unfilteredaau

Please Stop starting your CV like this:

“I am a hardworking and dedicated professional”

“Passionate about making a difference”

“Seeking a challenging opportunity to grow”

Nobody cares.

“I am hardworking” means nothing😂 Every single person says it. No one has ever written “I’m inconsistent and hard to work with.” So it becomes invisible. Recruiters skip it in seconds.

“Passionate about…” is just noise now. Overused and Empty. Passion is not a proof. It doesn’t tell them what you can actually do.

“Seeking an opportunity” is worse. You’re making it about you.  But your CV is not about you. It’s a business document. They are not reading it to help you. They are reading it to answer one question:

Can you solve our problem?

If your first line doesn’t answer that, you’ve already lost.

Use this instead:

[What you do] + [who you do it for] + [the result you produce]

Example:

Marketing manager with 6 years building demand generation for B2B SaaS companies, consistently driving pipeline growth above target.

That’s what earns the next line.

@CTBEsoftwareengineers

✨The bug that isn't a bug: silent LLM failures✨

If you're building anything with LLM agents or API calls, here's a trap almost everyone falls into: a 200 OK response doesn't mean success.*

Most people wrap API calls in try/except and call it "error handling." But LLMs (and a lot of third-party APIs) fail silently they return valid JSON, valid status codes, and just wrong or empty content. Your code sails right past it thinking everything's fine.

So a quick fix that saves hours of debugging:

🔹Don't just check response.status_code == 200 validate the content too (right schema? non-empty? within expected bounds?)
🔹Log the raw response on ambiguous failures, not just the exception
🔹For LLM calls specifically: add a sanity check step (e.g., "did this actually answer the question asked?") before trusting the output downstream

The pattern: "it ran without crashing" ≠ "it worked."

hope this helps ☺️

@CTBEsoftwareengineers

⚡️ Global Dev Tool Trends: September 2026 Edition ⚡️

The software engineering landscape has officially shifted from "AI as a chat assistant" to "AI as an autonomous co-developer." If you are relying purely on standard autocomplete for your projects this semester, here is how the global dev tool ecosystem is evolving right now.

The AI-Native IDE Wars (Cursor & Windsurf):
Standard editors are rapidly being replaced by AI-native environments. Cursor remains the dominant choice for seamless codebase integration and multi-file edits, while Windsurf is gaining traction as a highly optimized, affordable alternative. Both keep you in the driver's seat while dramatically speeding up boilerplate generation and interactive coding.

Asynchronous Background Agents (Jules & Devin):
The industry is moving toward agents that work while you attend lectures. Jules operates with its own allocated capacity to autonomously analyze up to 30,000 lines of code, write unit tests, and open GitHub PRs asynchronously without requiring an active prompt session. Similarly, Devin-class cloud tools handle complete multi-step engineering tasks by running parallel agents to close out tickets end-to-end.

Terminal-First Orchestration (Claude Code):
For developers who live in the CLI, tools like Claude Code are leading the pack for deep repository context and complex terminal-heavy refactoring. It allows you to run multi-file edits directly from the command line.

Multi-Agent Platforms (Google Antigravity):
The new frontier is engineering your own AI workflows. Platforms like Google Antigravity provide developers with direct environment access to build, test, and deploy autonomous multi-agent systems. It is quickly becoming a standard for building scalable infrastructure with deterministic tool pipelines and formal verification steps.

Zero-to-MVP App Builders:
For hackathons and rapid prototyping, browser-based builders like Bolt.new, v0, and Lovable are generating fully deployable, full-stack applications (including databases and backend logic) directly from natural language.

Let's keep building !
@CTBEsoftwareengineers

The Real Website Launch Checklist

Ship fast — but don’t ship careless.

🧱 BEFORE YOU LAUNCH (Foundations You Can’t Ignore)

🔐 Security (Non-Negotiable)

Secure your API keys (never expose them client-side)
Hide all .env files
Never hardcode secrets in your codebase
Add proper authentication (JWT, sessions, etc.)
Verify permissions server-side (not frontend)
Never trust frontend user IDs
Isolate user data properly (no cross-access)
Lock down your database (rules, roles, access limits)
Secure Firebase / Supabase / storage buckets
Protect admin routes (role-based access control)
Disable production debug mode
Hide detailed error messages in production
Validate inputs server-side
Sanitize all user-generated content
Secure file uploads (type, size, storage rules)
Prevent SQL & NoSQL injection
Rate-limit login & signup endpoints
Check Git history for leaked secrets
Add security headers (CSP, HSTS, etc.)
Restrict CORS properly
Test your app as an untrusted user

⚠️ Most leaks come from skipping just ONE of these.

⚙️ Core Web Essentials

Privacy Policy page
Terms & Conditions page
Remove all frontend secrets
Enforce HTTPS (SSL everywhere)
Cookie consent banner (if tracking)
Analytics setup (basic tracking ready)

UX, SEO & Performance

Meta titles & descriptions (every page)
Social preview image (Open Graph)
Favicon
Sitemap.xml + robots.txt
Image alt text (accessibility + SEO)
Compress images (WebP/AVIF preferred)
Page load speed check (Lighthouse)
Fix color contrast issues
Ensure mobile responsiveness
Create a custom 404 page
Fix all broken links
Add proper form validation (UX + security)
Add spam protection (CAPTCHA, honeypots)
One clear primary CTA (no confusion)

RIGHT BEFORE YOU HIT “DEPLOY”

Test all critical flows (signup, login, payments)
Try breaking your own app intentionally
Test slow internet conditions
Open in different browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari)
Test on real mobile devices (not just DevTools)
Check console for hidden errors
Remove unused code & assets
Double-check environment variables
Confirm production database is correct
Make sure emails/notifications actually send

AFTER YOU LAUNCH (Most People Stop Here… Don’t)

📊

Tracking & Visibility
Connect Google Search Console

→ Monitor indexing, search performance, errors
Set up Google Analytics

→ Understand real user behavior
(Optional) Set up Google Business Profile

→ Especially for local visibility

Performance & Real-World Testing

Compress & optimize images again (based on real usage)
Test on real phones (different sizes & speeds)
Monitor Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP)
Fix issues users actually experience


🛡️ Stability & Safety

Set up automated backups (database + files)
Monitor uptime (basic alerts)
Log errors (don’t rely on console logs)

30 SIGNS YOUR SITE LOOKS “VIBE-CODED” (Be Honest)

1.arsh gradients everywhere
2.Purple + black default combo
3.Random rainbow colors
4.Pure white background with no depth
5.Too many drop shadows
6.“3 feature cards in a row” layout
7.Emojis used as design
8.Liquid glass everywhere
9.Overused fonts (Inter / Geist / Space Grotesk)
10.Colored left border sections
11.Fake testimonials
12.Bento grid for no reason
13.Fake terminal UI
14.“It’s not X, it’s Y” copywriting
15.Checkmark bullet lists everywhere
16.3 pricing tiers (Starter / Pro / Enterprise 😭)
17.No real product demo
18.Soft rounded corners on everything
19.No skeleton loaders (just blank loading)
20.Floating radial blobs/orbs
21.Dot grid backgrounds
22.Sparkle icons ✨
24.Animated arrows everywhere
24.Neon colors for no reason
25.Basic pastel gradients
26.Hover animations on EVERYTHING
27.No Terms or Privacy pages
28.Generic hero section
29.No real brand identity
30.Looks like 100 other SaaS site

FINAL REMINDER

Launching isn’t the finish line.
It’s the moment your app meets reality.
👉 Users don’t care how fast you shipped.

👉 They care if it works, feels real, and can be trusted.
Ship. But ship like a professional.

@CTBEsoftwareengineers

ለመላው የክርስትና እምነት ተከታዮች በሙሉ

መልካም የመስቀል በዓል

አዲስ አበባ ዩኒቨርስቲ

⚠️ Even if vibe coding isn’t recommended , Bookmark this before you start vibe coding.
You’ll need it !

@CTBEsoftwareengineers

Critical Database Checks Before You Build
Before writing your database schema, don't only think about the main tables. Check these too:

• Relationships — who belongs to what, and what happens when related data is deleted?

• Constraints — required fields, unique values, foreign keys, valid ranges, and enums.

• Indexes — which fields will be searched, filtered, sorted, or joined often?

• Data lifecycle — create, update, archive, restore, and permanent delete.

• Security — passwords, tokens, sensitive data, encryption, and access control.

• User states — active, inactive, suspended, verified, deleted, etc.

• Transactions — what operations must succeed or fail together?

• Concurrency — what happens when two users change the same data at the same time?

• Files & images — metadata, size, type, storage, ownership, and deletion.

• Soft delete & recovery — should data really be deleted or only archived?

• Versioning — do important records need history or previous versions?

• Performance — what happens when you have 1M+ records instead of 100?

• Retention & backup — how long is data kept, and how will it be restored?

• Future changes — can the schema evolve without breaking existing users or data?

Simple rule: Don't design a database only for how the app works today. Design it for how the data will behave throughout its entire lifecycle.

@CTBEsoftwareengineers

✨Database tip: sharding, and why you should delay it✨

Sharding means splitting one big database into smaller pieces (shards), each on its own server. Every shard holds only part of the data. Sounds great for scale, but it makes life harder: joins across shards get painful, transactions get tricky, and moving data later is a headache.

Try these first:
🔹Add indexes on slow queries
🔹Add read replicas for heavy read traffic
🔹Cache hot data (Redis)
🔹Archive old data

If you do shard, the shard key is everything.
Pick a key that: Spreads data evenly (like user_id) Matches how you query most often
A bad key, like country, creates "hot shards" where one server does all the work while others sit idle.

Rule of thumb: shard only when a single well-tuned server can no longer handle your data or writes.

This is only a heads-up. Do your own deep dive before you build on it. Hope this helps ☺️

@CTBEsoftwareengineers

Our Weekly Article is ready , It will posted soon
Who is Ready ?

Dear Past Me: Notes From the Developer Who Has to Fix Your Code

Last month I opened an old project and found a function called handleStuff. It was 140 lines long, had zero comments, and right in the middle sat a line that said // TODO: fix this later.
I did what any mature developer would do. I opened git blame, ready to find the guilty person and have a serious talk with them. ....

Read Here

@CTBEsoftwareengineers don't miss out - join now!

AI models are moving fast. Here are some of the notable releases from the past two weeks:

Gemini 4 Argon — Google
Released Sept. 30, Argon targets complex reasoning, coding, cybersecurity, and enterprise work, with a 1M-token context window.

Claude Sonnet 5.5 — Anthropic
Released Sept. 28, Sonnet 5.5 focuses on everyday knowledge work, coding, documents, and long-horizon tasks, while being faster and cheaper than its predecessor.

GPT-6.1 Sol — OpenAI
Released Sept. 29, GPT-6.1 Sol is designed for complex coding and professional work, with lower pricing than GPT-6 Astra and support for multi-agent workflows.

Claude Opus 5.5 — Anthropic
Released Sept. 22, Opus 5.5 targets demanding reasoning and professional tasks, with Anthropic reporting substantially lower operating costs than Opus 5.

Gemini 3.8 Live — Google
Released Sept. 15, the new Live models focus on real-time voice interaction, visual context, and more advanced multi-step reasoning.

#news
@CTBEsoftwareengineers

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