Planting My Mango Tree: Restarting My Developer Journey

📅2026-10-07⌚2 min read

I used to work at a government hospital back in Nepal, where I built software tools using Node.js and React.js. The most noticeable tool I built is an Automated Letter Drafting tool, which consumes patient data from an API, puts it into custom templates and uses JavaScript's native print command to print directly on the customized hospital letterhead. It automated a manual paper writing system in MS Word process that used to take around 5-10 min per patient into one that takes a few seconds.

Working at the government hospital as an IT professional and focal person, I took care of hardware fixes more than software development, but I always liked the development side more. After coming to the US, I focused on my studies and started coding more in Python. It's been almost 2 years since I built a good project; whatever I built in Python was basically for college assignments and projects.

This morning at 2 AM, my friend called me. We were talking about his recent research paper, then about exams and the future and in the middle of our conversation he said something that really touched me: "We got two chances in our life that one is 10 years ago: if you had worked hard and plant a mango tree then, you probably enjoying eating a juicy, ripe mango today. But that time is gone. The second chance is now: If you plant it today, you can enjoy the taste of mango exactly 10 years from now, It's never too late to start."

After our talk, I started thinking about what I used to do before, what I used to dream about for my future before and where I am now and what direction I am heading.

Today I cloned my old Git repo. It was all JavaScript, It took me a little time to recall the syntax. I felt really happy after seeing my own code, that is fully written by me without using any AI tool. As the part of university, I am currently working on my research, but from today I will also make time for myself to learn and grow. From today, I am committing myself to learn a new tech skills with AI every single day.

Additionally, I am currently working on my portfolio website nabinbhandari.com.np, and today I'm starting this journey by adding AI to my tech stack. My first step is a small VS Code tasks.json that starts my backend, frontend, and Claude together with a single command:

{
  "version": "2.0.0",
  "tasks": [
    {
      "label": "Start Backend",
      "type": "shell",
      "command": "cd backend && source .venv/bin/activate && python -m uvicorn main:app --reload --port 8001",
      //make this process running, no need to wait for this process to stop
      "isBackground": true,
      // prevent to parse terminal output as build errors.
      "problemMatcher": []
    },
    {
      "label": "Start Frontend",
      "type": "shell",
      "command": "npm run start",
      "isBackground": true,
      "problemMatcher": []
   },
   {
      "label": "Start claude",
      "type": "shell",
      "command": "Claude",
      "isBackground": true,
      "problemMatcher": []
    },
    {
      "label": "Start All",
      "dependsOn": ["Start Frontend", "Start Backend", "Start claude"],
      "dependsOrder": "parallel",
      "problemMatcher": [],
      "group": "build"
    }
  ]
}

Today, I planted my mango tree. 🌱

If you want to join me on this journey, head to the GitHub Friend section on my homepage where you can give me a HI-Five, enter your GitHub username and give me a Hi-Five!

Tags:journeyvscode