Lihu Zhai Senior Internet of Things Engineer at Airbus
Lihu is a Senior Full Stack Developer and System Architect with over 10 years of experience in building scalable, high-performance software solutions.
He specializes in cloud-native microservices, high-concurrency system architecture, and DevOps practices. Throughout his career, Lihu has designed and developed RESTful payment gateways, distributed systems, and highly available platforms for international projects.
His technical expertise includes Java and Spring Boot, alongside modern front-end and back-end technologies such as ReactJS, VueJS, NodeJS, PHP, and Python. He also has strong experience with Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins CI/CD pipelines, and cloud platforms including AWS and AliCloud.
Lihu is passionate about software architecture, infrastructure automation, and delivering reliable systems that scale efficiently. In addition to his technical leadership, he has experience leading development teams and collaborating in global cross-functional environments.
Author's articles
- June 23, 2026 at 2:26 PMPython OOP Complete Guide: The 10 Questions That Actually MatterMost Python OOP tutorials make one of two mistakes: they stop at "class Dog: pass" and call it complete, or they dump every dunder and metaclass concept on the reader without a path through. This guide is built around the 10 questions that actually come up when you write real Python code.
6/23/26 40views 0comments
2 - June 22, 2026 at 2:03 PMWhat Metaclasses Actually Are in Python (and When You Genuinely Need One)"Metaclasses are deeper magic than 99% of users should ever worry about. If you wonder whether you need them, you don't (the people who actually need them know with certainty that they need them, and don't need an explanation about why)." That's Tim Peters, in one of the most-quoted Python aphorisms ever written.
6/22/26 97views 0comments
2 - June 22, 2026 at 1:08 PM@dataclass in Python: From Boilerplate to Frozen and SlotsBefore PEP 557 landed in Python 3.7, every value class meant writing the same five methods by hand: __init__ to assign the fields, __repr__ for debuggable output, __eq__ for value comparison, often __hash__ to keep dict-key usage working, sometimes the ordering dunders for sorting. Thirty lines of boilerplate for what felt like four attributes.
6/22/26 59views 0comments
2 - June 19, 2026 at 12:47 PMAbstract Base Classes (ABC) and Protocols in Python: Interfaces Done RightPython has two ways to express the idea "this class implements an interface", and they look superficially similar but enforce the contract at completely different moments. Abstract Base Classes (abc.ABC + @abstractmethod) have been around since Python 2.6 (PEP 3119, 2007); they use nominal subtyping, where a class IS an implementer only if it inherits from the ABC, and enforce the contract at instantiation time by raising TypeError
6/19/26 53views 0comments
2 - June 19, 2026 at 11:40 AMComposition vs Inheritance in Python: When to Favor EachThe Gang of Four's Design Patterns (1994) buried one rule in the introduction so deep that most readers miss it, even though it's the most-cited line in the book: favor object composition over class inheritance. Thirty years later it's still the right default, and Python's culture has internalized it more than Java's or C++'s.
6/19/26 56views 0comments
2 - June 18, 2026 at 9:03 AMThe 12 Magic Methods (Dunders) You'll Actually Use in PythonPython has roughly 100 dunder methods documented in the Data Model reference, but you'll use about 12 of them daily and the rest almost never. Beginners worry about memorizing all of them; intermediate developers worry about which to implement on custom classes.
6/18/26 67views 0comments
2 - June 18, 2026 at 8:45 AM@property in Python: Getters, Setters, and Computed Attributes Done RightThe fastest way to spot a Python programmer who just came from Java: every class has a private _name, a get_name(), and a set_name(value). It works, but it's noise. Python doesn't need any of that. You write self.name = "Rex" directly.
6/18/26 58views 0comments
2 - June 17, 2026 at 2:33 PMsuper().__init__() and MRO Explained: Inheritance Without the Diamond ProblemThe shortest accurate description of super() comes from Raymond Hettinger's "Super Considered Super!" blog post and his PyCon 2015 talk: super() doesn't call your ancestors — it calls your children's ancestors. That line sounds confusing until you understand the Method Resolution Order (MRO), which is the linear list Python
6/17/26 92views 0comments
2 - June 17, 2026 at 1:18 PMstaticmethod vs classmethod vs instance method: When to Use Each in PythonPython has three method types, and the difference comes down to one question: what does Python pass as the first argument when you call the method? Instance methods (the default) receive the instance. Classmethods receive the class. Staticmethods receive nothing extra.
6/17/26 56views 0comments
2 - June 17, 2026 at 11:08 AMWhen to Use OOP in Python (and When to Skip It): A Decision Framework Backed by "Stop Writing Classes"Python isn't Java. Functions are first-class citizens, modules behave like singletons, dataclasses give you data containers with three lines, and the PSF tutorial doesn't even introduce classes until chapter 9. So the question every Python developer eventually faces isn't "should I learn OOP?
6/17/26 61views 0comments
2 - June 17, 2026 at 10:31 AMPython OOP for Absolute Beginners: Classes, Objects, and Why Use ThemObject-oriented programming in Python comes with two famous metaphors and a lot of jargon. The metaphors ("a class is a blueprint, an object is a house built from it") are accurate but don't tell you what's actually happening in memory or in your code.
6/17/26 66views 0comments
2 - June 4, 2026 at 2:01 PMPython Concepts Explained: 17 Answer-First Guides to Python's Most-Asked QuestionsThis is a curated reference for the 17 Python concept questions asked most often on Stack Overflow, Reddit, and Python forums. Each entry below answers a real question that millions of Python developers have searched
6/4/26 69views 0comments
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