FAQs

One of the best parts of sharing and writing these articles is the chats that follow. I've had loads of interesting chats in person and a few over email, and I think I've noticed a pattern.

A lot of the same questions pop up; some are esoteric about a topic, while others are simple "why?" questions. Ever since I transitioned into teaching, some of you've also questioned that, too.

While many have asked about my thoughts on the late 2025 job situation. Some have even asked why even I built projects like xsNumPy and SlowTorch, which seem like reinventing the wheel.

By the way, all of them are great questions!! Then there are the questions about what my favourite films are and what I'm currently watching. So to make this easier for everyone, I've put together my answers to your most frequent questions.

This isn't just a list, but it's an extension of my story. Some easter eggs, so to speak...

Frequently asked questions

What the f*ck is XAMES3, and why you use it everywhere?

Asked on November 02, 2025

So, XAMES3 is my alias and username for online profiles. The first part, "XA", represents my first name, Akshay. The letter X is a sound-alike for the first syllable, "Aksh". Think of the letter "X" on its own; it sounds similar to "Aksh".

A is a sound-alike for the second syllable, "ay" (as in "day").

So, "Aksh" + "ay" becomes X-A.

The second part, "MES3", is a subtle play on my surname, Mestry. MES is a straightforward representation of the first syllable, "Mes". And the number 3 represents "try". It is not "try" as we say in English but more like "tree".

So, XAMES3 is just my name spelled out in short. This is called a gramogram in English. For example, "c u" is a gramogram for "see you", "JL" is a gramogram for "jail", etc.

How do you pronounce XAMES3 or XA?

Asked on November 02, 2025

It's literally pronounced as "X-A" or "X-A-Mes-three".

Why did you transitioned into teaching?

Asked on November 16, 2025

I promised Charlotte that I'd teach someday to students or be in academia. Honestly speaking, I meant it as a joke, in that moment, but now that I'm teaching, I understand what she meant.

What is your role at National Louis University?

Asked on November 16, 2025

I'm an Adjunct at National Louis University's Undergraduate college in Computer Science & Information Systems (CSIS) Department.

What are your primary interests as IT professional?

Asked on December 02, 2025

Looking back, I'd say I've transitioned from a Software Engineer to AI. So, I still love to build or brainstorm about solutions or ideas that solve a particular problem. I enjoy AI too, don't get me wrong. But, software engineering, in particular:

  • understanding user or customer requirements

  • working with tools or accesses available at my disposal

  • reading and experimenting with documentations

  • debugging logs, and spending time on terminal

  • collaborating with other teams and fellow developers

  • building APIs

  • deployments (not on Fridays, those are f*cking horrible!!)

  • maintaining documentations

brings me joy!!

What is your favourite movie/TV show?

Asked on December 02, 2025

I'm a huge Christopher Nolan fan, and I his films. I tend to watch a lot of films, so it is difficult to say, what's my favourite. But, my go-to movie is Interstellar. I absolutely love the music compositions by Hans Zimmer. It is truly a masterpiece!!

As far as my favourite TV show, I've a few. My go-to would be obviously, Family Guy. But, if I were to recommend a TV show to anyone, I'd probably say, Dark.

What is your website's tech stack? The GitHub source looks simple

Asked on December 12, 2025

Thanks for checking out the source code on GitHub!! I'm no Frontend engineer and have sparse knowledge about modern JS frameworks at best. As you may've seen from the source itself, it's built using simple HTML, CSS, and vanilla JS (based on answers from StackOverflow).

There's no proper modern "tech stack" so to speak used for this website. I'm using Sphinx as my primary web-development tool.

Sphinx is a (python-based) documentation builder framework/package. I've written loads of internal technical documentations at my former employers, so I'm quite familiar with that. Since, it's written in Python, there's a lot of scope for customisation. Plus, there are loads of extensions for Sphinx. Although, there are a lot of sphinx extensions out there, I wasn't particularly satisfied with them, so I wrote a few of my own which are included as part of this theme and website. So, Sphinx covers the backend portion of my website.

My custom extensions are as follows:

  • author. This renders author details like name, about, email, GitHub, LinkedIn, and a timestamp of article

  • picture. Show colour-scheme aware images on the website

  • repository. Renders a small widget to show information about the GitHub repository. The details include stars and fork counts

  • thumbnail. This links YouTube videos by showing thumbnails asynchronously

  • video. Links any publically accessible video

  • youtube. Embeds a YouTube video

The rest frontend side is completely handled using simple HTML and Jinja2 templating. Jinja or Jinja2 is a templating engine written in Python and renders something called Jinja templates. To stylise the website, I'm using vanilla CSS and JS.