This is the second time I am writing a year in review, the first one was for a recap of 2019. The year 2020 has been chaotic, to say the least. With COVID 19 turning out to be a mild world war 3, everyone had a fair share of this disorder and new normal. In this post, I am going to discuss the professional and technical things I accomplished in 2020.
Highlights #
- My interview got published on Developers Nepal’s Newsletter volume 1
- Successfully migrated this blog from Octopress 2.0 to Eleventy 0.10 - here is the pull request
- Deployed a pet project with helping hands from almost 2 dozen people - Au Tech Jobs
- Before I took a social media break, a tweet thread I did in May-2020 about “How to run your side project for exactly $0 a month” gathered 36+ retweets and almost 60 likes.
Featured #
This year I got interviewed only once. At least I have 1 interview to share. I was asked to appear for a couple of interviews/panel discussions for youtube channels but I didn’t do it due to some reasons.
Interview Developers Nepal newsletter #
When Bibek Shrestha (not the one from Kandara :) band) asked me to do an interview for the first Developers Nepal newsletter I said yes. I got his email about it in mid-Aug (it was winter here then) and my interview was published on Nov 2 (almost summer here).
Also, big thanks to Aviskar and the team to condense the over ranting into something concise and readable.
The interview I believe has set the tone right for the newsletter. The second interview of Anita Sharma is also out recently.
Blogging and writing #
In terms of the number of posts, this year 2020 has been the highest.
I have written 24 blog posts and with this recap, it will be 25.
The year started with a post on the “Difference between backend, frontend, full-stack, and super stack development” which turned out to be the most popular post of 2020.
Let’s look at other posts published this year that have gathered a good amount of views and read:
Most viewed blog posts #
Below are the most viewed posts of 2020 for the blog posts published in 2020 :
- Difference between backend, frontend, full-stack and super stack development - Feb 2020
- How to use Docker with Node.js a step-by-step tutorial - Nov 2020
- 5 benefits of pair programming you should know about - Jun 2020
- Docker build example: how to go from slow to fast docker builds - Oct 2020
- Vegeta load testing a quick primer with GET examples - Sep 2020
Looks like when I write about docker it gets popular :). I have been a bit cautious about cross-posting this year for a better SEO strategy. I have cross-posted to tech Medium publications, Hackernoon, and dev.to. I have been deliberately slow to crosspost after September to gather some more SEO juice.
I have been lucky enough to get my posts published on Daily Js (108K followers) and JavaScript in Plain English (40K followers) publications on medium.
I have also published a couple of my posts on Quick Code (12K followers) and my work’s tech blog.
Moved blog to Eleventy from Octopress #
In March 2020 I moved my blog from Octopress to Eleventy. Octopress 2.x I can say is in a coma if not dead. I evaluated other options Hugo was one of them but Eleventy was a clear winner. It is simple yet super powerful.
My previous blogging software was limiting me as it took a long time to compile the markdown to HTML (CSS + JS of course). Now with Eleventy, that process takes seconds not minutes.
With this ease I have been much better and faster at blogging than before.
I did not change the theme, not even the colors. Eleventy is a lot faster to compile the markdown to HTML (CSS + JS). To make things JAM Stack I have added the most popular posts on the homepage. It comes from an API and the posts are pulled in on build time. I also use Forestry to edit it on the fly now.
Blog posts target - 14 posts, reached 24 :) #
For this year I exceeded my target on the no. of blog posts. I hope I can do it in 2021 too. I had set a yearly goal for 2020 to write 14 blog posts and a recap. Basically at least a post a month. I ended up doing 24 blog posts and this recap, making the total 25. Here is the breakdown by month:
- Feb - 1
- Apr - 3
- Jun - 1
- Aug - 1
- Sep - 5
- Oct - 5
- Nov - 6
- Dec - 3
Till August I had only 6 posts but Sep to Dec I pushed the tempo really up. As of Aug, I might have just reached my target of 14 posts. In the last quarter, I really pushed hard to get more content out. That brings us to the next segway of posting out good content consistently.
Alexa top 1 million websites #
First time in my life, I saw my blog make it to the top 1 million websites in the world as tracked by Alexa. It entered the top 1 million race around mid-Sep at 748K mark and climbed up to 520K. Then it tumbled down to the 735K range in Dec and stayed there.
Probably it will go out of the top 1 million but this is already a great achievement considering:
There are around 400 million active websites out of the 2 billion or more registered domain names. Basically being on the top 1 million puts your website at the top 0.25% of websites in the world which is not bad at all.
And FYI my blog does not get a tonne of traffic + it runs for exactly $0 a month.
Side project #
Similar to 2019, this year as well I focused on only 1 side project. The side project is AU Tech Jobs.
AU Tech Jobs #
We soft-launched AU Tech Jobs on Aug 3 and till now almost 2 dozen people helped build it in one way or the other. The AU Tech Jobs App does not have a lot of users but we think it is benefiting users getting 1300+ jobs from 50+ companies in one place.
Most people contributed code to this platform which includes me. Other people like Ansubha helped manage the social media side of things for this side project I tried to lead.
I want to heartily thank each and everyone who helped build up this side project. Thanks again.
I would highly recommend do only one side project at a time and get it across the line. It is not a good idea to have 2 or 3 running at the same time. As none of them is in a production-ready state.
Misc - everything else #
Some points that I remember:
- I helped more people find full-time tech jobs this year too. I helped a couple guys find a better second full-time tech job. I hope they will thank me and not forget the boat after crossing the river ;).
- My most popular tweet of 2020 garnered 40 retweets (including quotes) and almost 60 likes. A screenshot is below:
- I took a social media break from Oct 2020 and it is still going on. I might carry it on for 2021 too.
- It is said that I won the “CI/CD writer of the Year” award at Noonies.tech run by Hackernoon. I was a runner up in the serverless category too. Congrats to Sagar for winning the serverless category. Also Milap for winning the Computer Science category. Good to see Nepalis winning.
- I did not do any public speaking, even virtual ones. I didn’t even attend any virtual meetups. Public speaking for me is connecting to the audience best done in person. With this COVID situation is it not possible. I did a lightning talk on learning day at my workplace THE ICONIC about setting up a blog and how to SEO optimize posts. The first slide is below:
- I was promoted to Lead Software Engineer circa Sep/Oct-2020.
- I started using slack a bit more outside of work. It is a great place to learn and network. Among others Xplorers Slack group is Amazing. They also run the great Knowledge Academy blog.
Conclusion #
This year had its ups and downs.
One thing that it taught us all is probably being resilient in adverse times.
I hope we all get to see a better 2021.