2025: My Year in Review

01 Jan 2026 #misc

I’ll remember 2025 as the year I became a writer—and the year I lost my mom.

The saddest moment

After five years of fighting a chronic disease, she left.

It was the saddest, loneliest moment of my life. It led me to my toughest post ever.

To honor her memory, my sister and I wrote a book: Nuestros Recuerdos (Our Memories in Spanish).

We compiled my journal entries and her poetry. A friend drew some illustrations. And we found some pictures of her when she was young.

That was our therapy and way to keep her alive in our memory.

2025 was a year of achievements and melancholy, winning and losing, endings and beginnings.

Some victory dance moments

#1. My first viral post. One post about testing private methods got syndicated or reshared. BOOM! A traffic spike and some ebook sales.

#2. My first interview. Well, it wasn’t exactly an interview.

The LAX community invited me to a QA session with their coding students. They’re building the next generation of coders and leaders in Africa.

Their community manager found one of my posts and reached out. Another victory for writing.

That interview was the perfect excuse to ask for feedback on my communication skills. A coach taught me this 4-step framework for interviews.

#3. My first book, Street-Smart Coding.

It took about 4 months, from idea to typing the last word. Writing taught me plenty, but promoting taught me more.

I adopted a simple marketing strategy and passed the $1 test.

I translated it to Spanish and published it on Amazon.

And with a book came my first hater. Someone called me “b1tch” for promoting my book and left a sarcastic comment elsewhere.

The book was a real challenge.

#4. My first appearance on Hacker News. Yes, my blog got syndicated on HN. I didn’t make it to the first page. But hey, it’s progress.

My most read posts

In 2025, I wrote every single day, hitting the 400-post mark.

Among those daily posts, here are the top 10 posts by reads:

1. 9 Subjects I’ve Changed My Mind About as a Software Engineer
2. Six Proven Principles to Learn Any Skill Faster (Without Spending 10,000 Hours)
3. 5 Lessons from My Team’s Architect That Helped Me Become a Senior Developer
4. Don’t Write the Next Atomic Habits. Write Mini-Books
5. 12 Hard Truths About Coding I Learned the Hard Way After 10 Years
6. 7 Surprisingly Simple Ideas That Changed My Life (And Could Change Yours Too)
7. 10 Ways to Stand Out at Work—Other than Work Hard
8. What Frustrates Me the Most as a C#/.NET Developer
9. I’ve Replaced My Second Brain With a Simpler Method
10. 20+ Signs You’re a Real Programmer (Using 2 Monitors Isn’t One)

For 2026, apart from working on my health daily (simple idea #2 from the post #7), I’m making simplicity my intention. And I started decluttering my digital life. That intention will impact my content system too.

Thanks for reading, and happy coding in 2025!

Don’t miss my best of 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021.