My 2025 in Review—And My Most Read Posts

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

This year I didn’t run the New Year Challenge, but I kept my habit of writing a “year in review” post. I’ll remember 2025 as the year I became a writer and the year I lost a close family member. After five years of fighting a chronic disease, she passed away. It was the saddest, loneliest moment of my life, and my sister and I wrote a memoir‑like book to honor her memory.

2025 was a mix of achievements and melancholy—wins and losses, endings and beginnings.

Highlights

• A post about testing private methods was syndicated, generating a traffic spike and a few ebook sales.
• The ALX community invited me to a Q&A session with their coding students. Their community manager discovered one of my posts and reached out—another victory for writing.

Takeaways from the ALX Session

15 Takeaways From “Breaking in the Mindset That Gets You Hired” With ALX Community (Sep 15 ‘25)

I didn’t know about the ALX community before. They’re building the next generation of coders and leaders in Africa.

New Book

Street‑Smart Coding: 30 Lessons to Help You Code Like a Pro (Nov 3 ‘25)

• My most challenging writing project, taking about four months from idea to the final word.
• Writing taught me a lot; promoting taught me even more.
• I translated the book into Spanish and published it on Amazon.
• The book also brought my first hater, who left a sarcastic comment calling me “b1tch” for promoting it.

Two levels unlocked: a book and a hater.

My blog was also syndicated on Hacker News, though it didn’t make the front page—still progress.

Most Read Posts of 2025

If you missed any of them, here are the five most‑read posts I published on dev.to in 2025:

• You’re Not a Programmer Until… (Mar 24 ‘25)
• Dear Junior Coders: Stop Chasing Shiny Objects (Nov 24 ‘25)
• Five Eye‑Opening Lessons I Learned from Being Fired from My First Coding Job (Apr 7 ‘25)
• The First Time I Saw a Computer—A Bit of Nostalgia (Jun 30 ‘25)
• I Hope You Don’t Have to Write a CV. But If You Do, Follow These Tips (Mar 3 ‘25)

The last three made it to the Top 7. My personal favorites are the posts about the firing lessons and the first time I saw a computer.

Looking Ahead to 2026

If you want to level up your coding skills in 2026, check out Street‑Smart Coding. It isn’t a textbook, but a roadmap of 30 skills to code like a pro—because you need more than syntax to stand out.

Closing

Thanks for reading, and happy coding in 2026!