I was looking at my DEV dashboard recently, and I am genuinely moved. In the last three months, I’ve recorded approximately 800+ reads, and 700+ of you have decided to follow my journey. That is a nearly 1:1 ratio between readers and followers—a statistic I never expected.
In an industry often obsessed with the "next big thing," seeing that a traditional, "old school" approach to engineering resonates so strongly is both surprising and deeply rewarding.
It’s Not About the Tool, It’s About the Mindset
Throughout my 40-year career, I’ve seen countless "revolutionary" technologies come and go. I’ve transitioned from manual memory management to high-level frameworks, and from monolithic architectures to Dockerized environments.
Today, the conversation is dominated by AI. But for someone who has witnessed the evolution of compilers and the birth of modern IDEs, I see it for what it is: another powerful tool at our disposal. Tools change, as they always have, but the engineering mindset remains constant. Whether you are writing a Bash script, designing a RAG system, or refactoring a legacy Java monolith, what matters is the discipline behind the work:
- Understanding the "why" before the "how."
- Treating code as a long-term asset, not a disposable snippet.
- Prioritizing architecture and maintainability over raw speed.
Quality Over Quantity
What strikes me most isn't just the number of followers, but the quality of the time you spend with my words. My data shows peaks of 908 seconds (over 15 minutes) of average reading time on March 27th and April 2nd. Even recently, on June 9th, you spent an average of nearly 8 minutes (477 seconds) per post.
In a world of skim-reading and short attention spans, you are studying. You are looking for depth, and that gives me great hope and strength to continue writing for the future of our industry.
Why Now?
Now that I am retired, I am no longer obsessed with production deadlines or the need to satisfy executives and clients. I finally have the time to look back and share what I've learned.
As a self-taught developer who has "broken and fixed" systems for four decades, I feel my role now is to help maintain this focus on craftsmanship. It is easy to get lost in automation, but automation is only as good as the engineer directing it. I want to share the rigor and "maestria" that allow a developer to remain calm when a migration fails or a system crashes—moments where no tool can substitute for experience and a solid mental framework.
A Lesson That Always Works
I’ve learned one thing above all: "Questions" are more important than "answers." This applies not only to code development but to general design and every aspect of life.
As long as you keep asking questions—to yourselves, to a mentor, to a colleague, or to an AI—your curiosity to learn and improve will lead you to exceptional results.
Thank You
To the 700+ of you who have joined me: thank you. You are proving that "old school" values—analysis, architecture, and engineering integrity—are far from obsolete. They are, in fact, the very foundation upon which all new technologies must be built.
I am excited to continue this conversation in my series: "Beyond the Prompt: Why Experience Still Matters."
Let’s keep building with the right mindset.
You can also find me here:
- Blog: nospace.net
- GitHub: msbragi repositories
Top comments (6)
How many of those 700 followers are flesh and blood?
I don't know, you think they are fakes? How can i check? maybe you are right. I started write on march, and this is my first experience on participating on a community. Maybe you can give me the real.
I have no idea!
But I generally work on the assumption that a lot of follows are fakes. There was someone here a while back who wrote a tool for estimating those sorts of things iirc (or maybe it was just a conversation about such a tool) based on checking things like whether those users had ever posted anything. etc.
There's also a thing on DEV - or at least there used to be - where it suggests people to follow when you first sign up, meaning that sometimes people get an influx of followers simply because they were promoted to their own demographic. Not saying that's a bad thing, but it means that the followers came via algorithm rather than from stumbling on a post and genuinely wanting to read more.
It's complicated. Me personally, well, I don't like attaching metrics to social things at all because it's so unreliable!
Thank you for the insights! I completely agree that social metrics can be unreliable. I was actually quite surprised myself, so I decided to analyze the CSV statistics.
The data shows that the vast majority of the traffic and follows arrived precisely after my post 'Beyond the 8x Productivity Myth' was featured on the DEV home page. Before that, my traffic was minimal. It’s fascinating to see how the algorithm can occasionally connect 'old school' engineering perspectives with such a wide audience. This is the only reason I wrote this post, believe me: I certainly didn't want to brag about anything in particular. I have 40 years of experience under my belt, and now that I'm happily retired, I'm definitely too old in the business to do so.
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