2024 recap

Russia is still trying to conquer Ukraine, and Ukraine still fights back. I don't see how it can end anytime soon. I would very much like russians to stop and go home, but until then

#What I did this year?

#Music

This year, I released my first music album. I have been somewhere near music all my life, trying to play some. That was the first time I liked the result so much that I did not care if someone else would like it. I do not think I ever felt that way. And this is a nice feeling. If there is one thing I would like to get from Santa, that would be it. I wish to do more stuff that I would like that much.

And you know what, I am recording a new one. I have a few ideas that I want to explore, and I am making good progress. But no deadline is set yet. I am very happy that the amount of food in my fridge does not depend on the amount of music I am releasing, and I want it to stay that way, at least for now.

#Lapland crossing

Yeah. I crossed Lapland on a bicycle. I did it alone. Researched the trail and figured out logistics, food, charge, etc. Then, I rode 800 km on a bicycle, wild-camped, fished, and had a sauna a few times. Even though not everything went according to plan, it was awesome.

People often say they like to go on adventures alone, but I have never done so. While I was never truly alone, the internet makes it hard, I did enjoy going at my pace. I don't think, though, that solo will be my main mode of adventuring, but I know that I can do it alone, and it is not as scary as I thought before.

#Road trip in France

When I started riding motorcycles, driving a car became a lame and utility thing. You know, if one needs to move a fridge or get groceries, one uses a car. If one wants to travel, one uses a motorcycle. It turned out I missed car driving as much as motorcycle riding. We got the cheapest car at the Paris train station and rode around 2000 km of small roads in the North of France. All those castles and villages with century-old churches are very cool.

#Rust conference

I visited Rustlab 2024, and I want more of that. I already monitor the conference schedule for the next year. Fosdem looks very attractive. I don’t know yet if I can make it.

#Software

#Yamd

This year, I worked hard on YAMD. The most significant change is the introduction of a lexer. It took me ages to figure out how to do it. I like the result and have a few ideas on how to make it even better. I am writing these ideas as issues on GitHub, with a variable success rate.

I also added a simple benchmark and fuzing to the CI pipeline to future-proof the parser pipeline. It was not as straightforward as I hoped, but I think it was worth it.

#Cloudinary

I still maintain unofficial Cloudinary Rust SDK. I do it because I need one, and there is no official one. If, at some point, Cloudinary decides to take over or write one from scratch - I will be very happy to stop maintaining it.

Cloudinary has a very extensive API for uploads and transformations. My first idea was to have a hashmap with helper methods around it, which I didn't like from the beginning. This year, I finally found time to rewrite it. Now, there are a bunch of enums with documentation and tests. The work was labor intensive, but I find it much easier to work with now, and I hope it will be easier to support.

#BAR

I convinced at least one person to try BAR, and he sent bug reports and pull requests. Be as cool as Augustin. Use BAR.

#Mixed Signals cover

I used HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create an animated cover for my album. It turned out to be a full-fledged player with animation and other features. That is why I like the Web ecosystem. I can create an interactive, multiplatform, responsive (the responsive part is particularly neat) audio player that fits in one file.

#Books

• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
• Rust Atomics and Locks by Mara Bos
• Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know by Ranulph Fiennes
• Crafting Interpreters by Robert Nystrom
• Cosmos by Carl Sagan
• Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by James Goss and Arvin Ethan David based on the novel by Douglas Adams

That’s two books more than the previous year. I hope it is a trend :)

#Work-related stuff.

I am a team lead at Check24. No changes there. It is still hard to feel productive sometimes, but I am getting positive feedback, which helps a lot.

#2024 roll

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#Outro

That was a productive year. I do not experience that feeling often enough, but I like it. If you ask why one writes a year review, that's the answer for me.