About — Popov R&D Blog

Why I write

I write this blog for two main reasons.

First of all, writing helps me capture the things I’ve explored, so I can return to them later without re-learning everything from scratch. Engineering knowledge grows too fast to keep it all in your head forever, so writing lets me turn raw experience into something structured and memorable.

I’m also often surprised by how much shallow content exists online. Most articles on LinkedIn or Medium are low-effort, and genuinely in-depth material is rare. This blog exists to counter that. I prefer writing things with real insight — something even an experienced engineer can find value in.

What I write

I write about the software engineering topics I work with every day: JVM, Java and its frameworks, React-based frontends, cloud-native solutions (AWS), distributed systems, software architecture, systems design.

Overall, this blog focuses on deep, practical knowledge — not tutorials or rephrased documentation, but topics where I have real experience and something meaningful to add.

I also like comparing tools, approaches, and techniques to understand them without bias and make clearer decisions.

What I DON'T write

I don’t write quick tutorials, rewritten documentation, or shallow “What’s new” lists. For that, it’s better to follow people who specialize in this — developer advocates and direct code committers like Josh Long, Dan Vega, Sebastian Deleuze, and others.

I also avoid “How-to” style content because it becomes obsolete too fast as frameworks and languages evolve. Instead, I focus on the more fundamental things: internal behavior, reasoning, trade-offs, and concepts that stay relevant across versions.

How to read this blog

To make my writing more structured and predictable, every post on Popov R&D Blog belongs to one of the following categories:

“deep-dive”: [12-15 min read] Long-form explorations with code, internals, diagrams, and detailed analysis. These posts go as far as needed to fully understand how something works beneath the surface.
“break-down”: [10-15 min read] Workhorse of my writing approach. I take a complex concept, system or framework to dissect and analyse how it works internally and why, explore applicability and scope;
“overview”: [8-12 min read] A concise but sufficiently deep look at a new or existing approach, concept, pattern, framework, or language — focused on explaining what it is and why it matters.
“comparison”: [8-10 min read] Side-by-side evaluation of two or more technologies, models, or frameworks. I compare their design, performance characteristics, trade-offs, and the situations in which each option makes sense.
“benchmark”: [7-10 min read] I run a controlled experiment, measure performance under clearly defined conditions, and present the results with configurations, metrics, and a brief interpretation.
“opinion”: [4-6 min read] Oftentimes, I just want to share my perspective on a controversial or debatable topic, reflect on it, and support my view with clear arguments.

As the blog grows, I may add more categories, while still staying within this overall structure.

I am thankful to everyone who comes across this blog. If you find it useful, feel free to get in touch or follow me on Linkedin