Ruby Was Ready From The Start. Notes and expanded thoughts on eXtreme… | by Obie Fernandez | Nov, 2025 | Medium

Looking back, I can see insecurity and no small amount of impostor syndrome powered that dream. I wanted control before I had mastery. I wanted successful outcomes without the scars that would later prove that I deserved them. Because as most of you reading this probably know by now, real mastery does not come from giving orders. Later on I will get to why I think this particular lesson is especially important in the age of AI coding agents! Real mastery of sofware engineering emerges from understanding where a system will eventually collapse, and then carefully crafting it so that it will not collapse. Kind of like, you know, real world engineering? Except that in software, you cannot gain that understanding with books and algebra. No amount of writing specification documents or carefully wiring up diagrams teaches you what you actually need to know. You earn the requisite knowledge by guiding design under pressure, one careful change at a time, and by taking responsibility when the system does not do what it was supposed to do.