year++ : 2010 retrospective

As 2010 just closed, It’s time for a quick retrospective, looking at what went according to plan, and what could be improved upon in the year ahead.

• The boat is still afloat, but, not surprisingly, this year has been a bit rougher than the previous ones financially. There isn’t much I can do regarding the economic downturn, but this was a reminder that diversification, aka “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”, is always a good idea. I haven’t quite gotten to my 2010 resolution of getting into products – in 2011, I will aim modestly for a revenue of at least $1 coming from product sales. It’s the first step that is difficult.

• I spent some time this year learning F#; after 6 years or so writing exclusively C# code, this has been a great experience, and I am now sold on the Pragmatic Programmer advice to learn one language a year (still need to read that book). My F# skills are still mediocre at best, but it was a great introduction to functional concepts, and if anything, it had a direct impact in the quality of my C# code. Next in line: Python. Dynamic languages are another terra incognita for me, it’s time to give it a shot. The .NET community seems to be raving about Ruby these days, so why Python? Probably my contrarian streak – and also the fact that the Ruby community seems very focused on web development, which I am only moderately into, whereas Python and math often appear together.

• I committed to write a post every week for 2010, and pretty much did it. While this isn’t always easy, I do enjoy the exercise of clarifying my thoughts and writing them down, and then think about the follow-up comments and questions. Keep them coming, you guys are great! Besides, I have a terrible memory, and this turns out to be a very useful repository of tricks and code snippets I can go back to later. Regularity definitely paid off in terms of traffic: my blog receives now over 2000 visits a week, from about 500 early in the beginning of the year. For the first time, it even brought me a client – it’s nice when a labor of love also pays off economically. Another lesson learnt was that website downtime is a killer: I have run into some issues with my web host during the last quarter, and at the same time, the nice pattern of weekly visits started to behave erratically, trending downwards. It could be that my blog content dried up, but I can’t help thinking that my hosting issues are to blame. Sorry for anyone who has been inconvenienced, and I’ll definitely keep a closer look in 2011!

• I wrote quite a bit on VSTO, and became a Microsoft MVP for VSTO – definitely a highpoint of the year. I was honestly a bit surprised at the traffic I received around VSTO; nothing earth shattering, but it seems there is a demand for guidance on the general topic of Office automation and .NET. I’ll keep at it this year – and if you have specific requests, let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to deliver.

• I wanted to improve my system architecture skills in 2010, and while I have learnt quite a bit, I am still nowhere close to where I want to be, so that will remain an area of focus for 2011. The details remain fuzzy (one thing I still enjoy about .NET is that there is always something new to learn), but I still want to dig into Azure, and get better with data.

• It’s been a very fun year with the San Francisco .NET user group. I really wanted to keep quality speakers coming, and at the same time make it a more friendly place of discussion and exchange. Lighting talks, Nerd Dinners, drinks – we’ll have more on these in 2011. It takes a surprising amount of work to keep things running, but it’s been all worth it. Special thanks to Bruno Terkaly, Microsoft Evangelist extraordinaire, who has been incredibly supportive of the user group, and to all the volunteers and members who stepped up to help all year long (you know who you are!). I am really looking forward to 2011.

• I have been obsessing quite a bit about how to have the best of both worlds – a team of people with whom to discuss, from whom you expect ideas that are different from yours which are worth listening to, and independence. I still haven’t figured that one out; so far the only ways I see are getting a partner in Clear Lines, and/or setting up a collective/Guild of independent developers, something I like a lot on paper, but which would take a great amount of energy.

That’s it - I wish you all an amazing year 2011, packed with fun, success, and dreams fulfilled!