2022 Year-End Review

This isn’t a “real” post. This is a summary of all the things that made up my year in 2022. Thanks to all that were a part of it.

Writing 🔗

I published 16 articles about Ruby or software development in general this year. I started with a series about what we as developers can apply from a MBA curriculum. My last post of the year covered what I saw at RubyConf Mini.

In between, I wrote about find_or_initialize_by, RSpec request specs, released my past conference proposals, and more.

Mid-way through the year, I started a newsletter that I’ve been sending out monthly. I’m still not sure how I best want to structure that or what people want to read. If you subscribed, let me know what you like and what changes you might suggest. And if you’re not subscribed? You can change that for next month!

My most-read posts are those that end up in other newsletters. This year, my writing appeared in Ruby Weekly 4 times, Ruby Radar 3 times, and Awesome Ruby 4 times. I appeared in the Short Ruby Newsletter and Developer Avacados Weekly each once, which were both new for me this year.

This is down from last year, but I’m not sure what to take away from that. It’s possible that my writing this year wasn’t as good as last year. My topics may not have been as good of a match for sharing in newsletters. It could be that there’s a lot more content to choose from and more competition. It could be none of those things! What do you think?

Speaking 🔗

I ventured back out into the real, physical, world this year for conference speaking.

At RailsConf 2022, I opened up my browser history to discuss how, and why, we search for things in our day-to-day job as developers.

It’s always an honor to present at Ruby Central conferences, and it was great to see so many people. But, I was pretty overwhelmed by the whole experience. Enough that I told myself I was going to take a while off from speaking.

And then RubyConf Mini came around in the fall. This seemed like a unique opportunity to support the community, and was very close to me in Providence, RI. I felt like I had to try to be a part of it, so I submitted. And I ended up presenting in the first slot of day 1, where we taught a computer how to play guitar.

Last year I shared how many proposals I submitted to how many conferences. I did not keep track of that this year. Without those numbers, I’ll provide this general assessment. You can (and I did) submit more than one proposal to conferences. I had many more proposals rejected than accepted.

I was a guest on one podcast in 2022, but for two episodes - and one you never heard. I recorded an episode of Code and the Coding Coders who Code it with Drew Bragg that we lost at the hands of bad audio. But, we persevered and re-recorded a different episode, which split into a bonus ep about hockey.

Reading 🔗

I was a technical reviewer for two books. Both for Noel Rappin and The Pragmatic Bookshelf again. I provided feedback on the second edition of Modern CSS with Tailwind, as I did for the first edition last year. That continues to be funny to me. It may be funny to you if you know my relative ability (or lack thereof) at accomplishing anything with CSS.

Noel is also bringing back the “Pickaxe book”. I reviewed part of Programming Ruby 3.2 this year as well.

Employer 🔗

I had a public job search for this first time this year. I’m very thankful to all the people who reached out, either with an opportunity, a helping hand, or both. I’m happy to have ended up at BookBub.

New (to me) in 2022 🔗

I don’t go out of my way to experience new things, instead retreating to known comforts. So, I don’t have much in the way of brand new things to me this year. Here’s some stuff that came out in 2022 that I, of course, was going to like.

Dance Fever 🔗

Florence Welch’s voice is unmatched and the new Florence + The Machine album is a gem. “Free” is easily the best song I’ve heard all year, and maybe for the last few years.

Impera 🔗

Ghost is a delight. It’s exactly the type of band that, if you described them to me, I would say I’m not interested. But their music is too good, and too fun, so I don’t care. Their new album is no exception.

Normal Gossip 🔗

I already knew Kelsey McKinney from their writing on Defector and their book. This year I got into Kelsey McKinney the podcast host of Normal Gossip, the show that

delivers juicy, strange, funny, and utterly banal gossip about people you’ll never know and never meet.

Thank You 🔗

Thanks for reading, or listening. Thanks for being a friend. Thanks for doing your best to make the world around you as good as it can be. I hope there’s more of that next year.