2016: A Year in Review
Another year has passed and it's time to take a look back and see what I accomplished!
Open Source
It's been a busy year in open source for me with over 1100+ contributions, let's see...
- excalibur.js: Excalibur remains one of the largest OSS projects I help maintain. I redesigned the Excalibur.js website. I made about 49 pull requeststo the codebase. We made 4 releases, bringing us from 0.6 to 0.8 (over 177 issues closed!).
- TypeDoc: This was a close one, last month I submitted a PR to support TypeScript 2.1.4.
- DefinitelyTyped: Made my first PR to DefinitelyTyped even though I've made tons of private declaration files for my projects.
- UnderscoreKO: Updated for Underscore 1.8
- PoshOpenWeatherMap: I made a fun little weather Powershell module.
- cassette-sri: I needed Subresource Integrity support for KTOMG, so I published an extension to Cassette.
New Tech
I definitely enjoy learning new things and playing with tech.
- Played with Azure Key Vault
- Dabbled in some ASP.NET Core
- At work I dove deep into Powershell DSC and JFrog Artifactory
- I set up equipment for my course recording: Behringer XENYX Q802USB Mixer, ATR2100 Microphone
- I got a Raspberry Pi 3 for Christmas and made it into an emulation console using Lakka
Gaming
Making and playing games remains one of my passions, that much is clear:
- Keep Track of My Games: I released 10 updates to KTOMG last year, some of the biggest ones so far, adding tons of major new features.
- I participated in the Ludum Dare 35 game jam with the game Hex Shaper.
- Me and Erik Onarheim made a ASP.NET Core demo game for a work code camp
- We also made a Planet Wars AI simulator in Excalibur for a work competition
- I've been working on a (currently private) sample game for Excalibur, it will be used as a the primary learning sample for new users.
- I played some games
Speaking & Conferences
I gave some talks and went to conferences! I spread the TypeScript love.
- Midwest.js: I gave a presentation on Demystifying TypeScript at Midwest.js in August this year. It was a lot of fun, but the recording still isn't up on YouTube yet.
- TCCC20: I gave a presentation on TypeScript in Action at Twin Cities Code Camp 20 in April.
- MS Build: I attended Microsoft Build 2016 with my coworkers. It was a blast.
Publishing
I want to try and commit to beating 2016's blog post count:
- I published 16 blog posts in 2016.
- I accepted a contract to make an Introduction to TypeScript video course with Packt Publishing.
Life
- My wife and I are expecting our first child in February! I'm sure this will definitely affect how much time I get to spend on side projects so developing some kind of rhythm will be key.
I'm sure there's other stuff I'm forgetting--but I'm super proud of all the stuff I got done this year. Here's looking forward to 2017 as a new father!