2024 Year In Review

Date Published: 26 February 2025

2024 Year In Review

Better late than never, as I'm writing this in late February 2025...

First, here's a few links to past years in review:

Now on to the various categories...

Blogging ✍️

Blogging continues its slide into obscurity. In 2024 I had just 18 new articles, which is down from 20 in 2023. I think part of the reason for this is that I've been focusing more on video content. I also tend to get more immediate feedback on video content, even though it's more effort to create, and there are vanity metrics like YouTube subscribers which offer more of a dopamine hit than page views on a blog. In 2023 I had 20 articles so this is a slight decrease.

In 2025 I think I'll keep my goal pretty modest and aim for 1-2 new articles per month. I'm already behind, but hopefully I'll be able to hit the 12-24 range. Last year my goal as only 12 for the year, which I did hit, so yay for that I guess. 😁

Google Analytics 📈

I very rarely even look at Google Analytics for my blog anymore. Probably the last time I did so was when I was writing my 2023 year in review post.

In 2023 I had about 645k page views for ardalis.com. In 2024 I had about 535k page views, so a drop of about 17%.

That's continuing a downward trend. I had about 750k page views in 2022, and 842k in 2021. Probably if I posted more often, I'd get more views...

I did have two obvious spikes on my traffic graph, which correspond to two popular articles: From Microservices to Modular Monoliths and Avoid Using C# Events in ASP.NET Core Apps:

2024 Traffic

Most Popular Articles ⭐

Naturally those two were among my most popular articles. Here's the top 10 list for the year:

  1. Solved - An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden (29k views UP from 16k in 2023)
  2. The More You Know The More You Realize You Don't Know (21k views)
  3. From Microservices to Modular Monoliths (19k views)
  4. Avoid Using C# Events in ASP.NET Core Apps (14k views)
  5. Clean Architecture Sucks (12k views)
  6. Force Nuget to Reinstall Packages Without Updating (12k views)
  7. Stop Debugging and Start Running in Visual Studio (10k views)
  8. Log Request Headers Middleware for ASP.NET Core (9k views)
  9. Introducing Modular Monoliths: The Goldilocks Architecture (9k views)
  10. ASP.NET Core Clean Architecture Template v8 Released (9k views)

Currently I have about 1682 blog posts on this site.

I do notice this year that most of these top articles were actually published in 2024. That's different - in past years a lot of older articles would be in the top 10. I wonder if this indicates a change in Google algorithms, favoring newer content, or something else. 🤷

Weekly Dev Tips Podcast Stats

I have (had) a podcast, Weekly Dev Tips (which is the same name as my emailed newsletter that goes out every Wednesday). You can find it on the usual podcasting apps, its website, and also on YouTube.

Still haven't published anything new to it since 2021. Still focusing more on YouTube and Dometrain video content. If the mood strikes me I may record some new episodes in 2025 for the podcast (or maybe start a new one, who knows?).

That doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to the existing shows. Most of them are meant to be evergreen content that you would listen to in order, with a lot of great stuff packed into the first couple dozen episodes. Check them out if you haven't and you're interested in my take on things.

Weekly Dev Tips Mailing List

I've gotten kind of hit or miss on sending out newsletters, too. So, if you sign up, don't be surprised if I don't spam you with new content every week. But I do aim for weekly. Subscriber wise it's still holding on in the high 4k range.

You can sign up here, if you're interested.

Social Media Stats

It can be difficult to get this information after the fact, so here are my stats for various social media things as of February 2025.

Mostly inactive platforms/accounts:

Both BlueSky and LinkedIn have become my two top social media platforms. Twitter is basically dead to me, and I was never really active on Instagram or TikTok. For some reason Mastodon never got the traction BlueSky has - I think because of the whole need to choose a server thing. But anyway, if you're looking for a good tech community, I recommend BlueSky and LinkedIn.

New Courses and Books 📚

In 2024, I published the following books and courses:

Dometrain

(View All)

I published 4 new courses on Dometrain in 2024:

NOTE: You can use code 'ARDALIS' on any individual course to get 20% off.

Pluralsight

(View All)

I published 3 updated courses last year (24 total - they've completely de-listed a few so it shows 20).

Speaking 🎤

I spoke at a few conferences last year, including some in person events:

  • CodeMash 2024 (aka CodeMash Prime) (clean architecture, prime factoring)
  • Stir Trek (May 2024) (modular monoliths)
  • Authority Partners webinar (distributed events)
  • TechoramaNL (October 2024) (clean architecture/modular monolith/ddd workshop, ddd session, modular monolith session)
  • dotnetconf 2024 (clean architecture)

My talks and workshops often focus on domain driven design, clean architecture, cloud design patterns, and ASP.NET Core. Contact me if you're interested in private presentations or training for your team.

Travel ✈️

Most of the rest of this is less interesting if you just follow me for technical content. You've been warned.

As part of the TechoramaNL conference, my wife and twin boys and I traveled to Switzerland and southern Germany (and Liechtenstein!), ticking off two countries I hadn't previously visited.

Fitbit Stats 🏃‍♂️

You used to be able to get annual stats from Fitbit in the Activities tab. But for some idiotic reason they decided they don't need a web site, they have an app. Asinine.

2024:

  • 2.7M total steps counted (down about 1M)

Still playing soccer year-round (and coaching my now 10yo boys). Also inconsistently lifting in 2024 (but started a program in Jan 2025 with more consistency).

Weight-wise 2024 started at about 224 pounds (27% bf) and ended at about 225 pounds (28% bf). So, not great but not getting too much worse.

Goal this year (like most years) is to get in better shape, and I'm already on track to do so in 2025.

Dropping a few sections I had in previous years just to keep this more streamlined...

That's It

Thanks for reading this far. This post is mostly for my own reference, but maybe you found it interesting or useful.

If you want to write your own year in review blog post, I wrote a checklist here. It's probably longer than most people will want but you can just pick and choose what works for you.

Good luck this year and beyond!

Steve Smith

About Ardalis

Software Architect

Steve is an experienced software architect and trainer, focusing on code quality and Domain-Driven Design with .NET.