I like the idea of not defaulting to libraries for small things. That shift alone can simplify a lot of projects. At the same time, writing your own abstraction isn’t completely free either. The initial version might be 50 lines, but edge cases, maintenance, and long-term changes tend to grow that quickly. That’s where well-maintained libraries still earn their place. The part that resonated most was treating libraries as inspiration instead of blindly depending on them. That feels like a much more practical middle ground than either extreme.

This is one of those topics that feels simple at first, but really changes how you structure everything once it clicks. I remember when modules finally made sense to me, it instantly reduced so much confusion in larger files. The mental model shift from “one big file” to “small responsibilities per file” makes a big difference in real projects. Also liked the kitchen analogy, it makes it very easy to explain to beginners.

Clean separation between controllers and routes is one of those things that looks simple but makes a big difference once a project grows. I learned this the hard way. Mixing logic and routing made refactoring painful when we later added API versioning and centralized error handling. Structuring it early saves a lot of time later.

I like how you connected this to real request flow. When I started building backend systems, I assumed async = automatic scalability too. Then I shipped a feature with heavy JSON parsing and watched the whole server freeze under load. Now I always offload CPU-heavy work to worker threads. The Event Loop is fast, but only if you keep it free.