Wrapping Up the Year
Another year, another look back.
What I Did
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I left Deep Genomics and joined Plotly, where I deleted several hundred GitHub repositories and closed several thousand stale issues. I still enjoy coding and teaching more than I enjoy managing, but most tech companies don’t realize they need teachers, and most seem uncomfortable when faced with 61-year-olds who want to code.
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The Python version of Software Design by Example came out. Reviewers seemed to like it, but sales and website traffic have been disappointing. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not working hard enough to get the word out, whether long-form prose is out of fashion, or whether I’m barking up the wrong tree, but as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I’ve shelved a planned follow-up as a result.
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On a related note, I wrote a tutorial on SQL for data scientists. I started a couple of others, but since I don’t have an audience or venue lined up, I doubt I’ll ever finish them.
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I ran the teaching workshop a couple of times to raise money for Rainbow Railroad, who need support now more than ever.
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I appeared on the Code for Thought, CoRecursive, and Software Unscripted podcasts.
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I went to a conference for the first time since COVID and visited the Capilano Suspension Bridge for the first time in fifty years.
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We wound down It Will Never Work in Theory and wrote a retrospective about it. I still post one-line summaries of interesting papers on this site, but after fourteen years, it was time to acknowledge that working programmers aren’t going to care about software engineering research in my lifetime, and that researchers aren’t going to care enough about that to change what they do or how they do it.
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I ran for the board of the Python Software Foundation and came seventh. In retrospect I’m not surprised: I haven’t really been involved in open source communities in years.
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I started playing the penny whistle, which is the only thing I’ve tried that doesn’t aggravate my tendon problems. I find the sound quite shrill compared to the tenor sax, but it’s definitely improving my lung capacity.
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I didn’t finish any of the children’s books I’ve been writing working on for the last few years, write any new short stories, or find a writing group in Toronto.
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I took the family trailbiking for the first time, almost had my (regular) bike stolen, spent Thanksgiving at the cottage, and went to the gym less than I should have.
What I Read
Top of the list is Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, which deserves all the praise it has been given—I can’t remember the last time I read something so beautifully written.
The Year to Come
I don’t expect to cross anything off my wish list this year, but life is full of surprises.
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My daughter will finish high school in June and leave home in August to start college. I don’t know how we’re going to fill our evenings and weekends without her, but I imagine we’ll finally get around to terracing our back yard.
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I’ll be supervising some undergrad projects at the University of Toronto for the first time in 15 years. I’m also going to be speaking at CUSEC 2025; I hope this talk will age better than my last one.
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I’d really like to do an internship this summer. I understand why tech companies and universities and everyone else aren’t geared up for this, and I realize it would be unfair of me to take a position that might otherwise go to someone trying to start their career in the worst job market in my working lifetime, but it would be fun to be learning again.
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Record some videos for Software Design by Example? Maybe, but it’s a lot of work and I’m not sure who they would help. The same goes for writing some of these books; I’d really like to cross one or two off the list, but see my note above about tech companies not realizing how much they need teachers.
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I probably won’t organize another volume of The Architecture of Open Source Applications, but if you want to, please reach out: I’d be happy to offer advice and support. Similarly, I might finish this tutorial on human-scale web development if I can find a writing partner; please email me if you’d like to help.
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I’m going to keep trying to write fiction, but without peers to write for or the prospect of a market, it’s hard to stay motivated. The same holds for the penny whistle: if I don’t find a teacher or a group to play with, I probably won’t stick with it.