An interesting thing about 2011 is that my resolutions from earlier became quite prominent. Given that 8 months of 2011 were spent on a large account with less technical focus, I’m amazed at some of the technical things that I’ve done.

Reflections on 2011 and carry over from 2010:

• Mouseless Computing (2010) - I think the practice is paying off as a colleague of mine told me “You make Windows fly!”, and he’s a savvy keyboard only Mac OSX user.
• OSS participation (2010) - I started the following projects:
  • Pester - I’ve blogged about it and it’s getting some traction out there in the wild. It’s a spec based testing framework for Powershell. The first implementation was written on a hung-over new years day!
  • yari - A Windows ruby version manager. Currently being used by a very large client. I wrote this on a whim, because I thought I could do better than what was previously implemented. Turned out the client liked this a lot more and decided to adopt it right away.
  • YDeliver - The beginnings of a Continuous Delivery framework for .Net projects.
  • Misc - Submitted a patch to OpenMRS, a bug report to Puppet, directory additions to PSGet
• Learn VIM (2011) - This went really well. I’m definitely no expert at this point but I’m continuoully trying to learn new things. I’ve setup a github project for my vimfiles which is a fun way to share my tweaks.
• Develop an Android App (2011) - Nope, didn’t do anything here. It’s actually dropped off my radar as it’s not really something I’m interested in anymore
• Learn a server provisioning automation tool (2011) - I barely get a passing grade on this one. I’ve yet to use any of these tools (chef, puppet, etc…) on a project. In my spare time I’ve tried them out and understand the gist of how they work. I do question how necessary they are though. Unless you’re doing massive scaling it seems like they just add extra overhead for simple scenarios.
• Move this blog (2011) - This will be my last post on this blog engine. I’ve currently setup Octopress and have my new blog ready on github. I just have the task of migrating over all posts (and deleting some). I have more to say about Octopress soon.

Development Goals for 2012:

2012 is going to be different for me development wise. I’m finding myself less focused on technical issues and more on system, culture, and people goals. I’m striving to become more of a leader (clear sign of post-technical syndrome) and I think that’s reflected in my resolutions for this year.

Stop reading comments

Often when I read comments online I want to get those precious minutes of my life back. I favour a discussion over pointless online kibitzing any day. Now of course every scenario is different. The probability of reading comments on Youtube or on some news website is very low. On a blog post about some technical issue, I’ll likely read the comments.

No client work when away from client

Being away from the client is not a place in space problem, it’s a frame of mind issue. I want to develop some skills in removing myself from the client mentally. This is purely for my own sanity and likely for the sanity of those around me. I’m finding myself disconnected from my personal goals and more focused at facilitating the goals of whom I am working for. One thing I’ve learned by being on the road is that ME time is harder to come by. As an introverted individual, that ME time is how I recharge.

Complete YDeliver

Hey, an actual technical resolution! By the end of 2012 I want to know that at least 5 projects are using YDeliver. It’s incomplete right now and I need to get off my arse and complete some of the “last mile” stories to get it out there. I also don’t want to be the single committer to the project. This is a call for help for anyone interested in participating! I have some very strong opinions on how some of the pieces should work together and I will be happy to provide guidance.

Summary

Yeah, so this is probably less interesting than previous years. I’m actually very happy on how my previous resolutions have developed and are continuing to get better and better. In previous years I mentioned developing something on a completely different stack (like Ruby on Rails). Next year I’m starting a new project working on a small application that involves iOS and ruby development. So work is going to force some of my previous resolutions on me.

• yearly-goals