2023

Published on Jan 1, 2024, filed under misc (feed). (Share this on Mastodon or Bluesky?)

Bye 2023, hi 2024 👋

Here’s my look back at the last year. It felt uneventful—but was it? Let’s review the highlights.

Professionally

One big change in 2023 was about changing employers—right on January 1, I joined Miro, as the engineering manager of Miro’s accessibility team. The Miro year was not without challenges—take the February layoffs—, but with the team, we’ve managed to truly up-level Miro accessibility (if you’re interested, we’ve been sharing brief updates about our work). Consider that at the beginning of 2023, you couldn’t navigate Miro boards by keyboard, or easily access the content of board objects by screen reader—now, at the beginning of 2024, we’re close to rolling out updates that even enable and encourage Miro users to create boards that are accessible.

In July, I published the next edition of The Web Development Glossary: The Web Development Glossary 3K. That new edition—which is maintained, i.e., updated irregularly—not only features hundreds of additional terms, but also makes exploring and navigating easier than in the first edition.

The next month, in August, I also rolled out an online edition of the glossary, WebGlossary.info. If you need a brief definition of something, or like to explore the field of web development and its neighbors, then I designed the site to exactly meet these needs. Check it out—the latest book edition (at the moment, The Web Development Glossary 3K) gets updates first, but, of course, the site is being updated as well.

(The glossary project with book and site is a lot of work—largely mechanical, actually enjoyable for that reason, too, but, yes, a lot of work. I’m very happy about the project—and I like the idea it’s useful to you and your work.)

In August, then, I also finished what I call “my first 10K”—10,000 contributions within the previous 365 days, on GitHub. I didn’t maintain the pace, but—thanks to straightforward and partially automated commits—I didn’t have a single day without some contribution, either. Let’s just say I really love the work in our field.

Statistics

• Mails sent: 9,362 ↑
• Code contributions made: 10,003 ↗
• Articles published: 44 ↗
• Articles discarded: 8 ↑
• Books read: 69 ↘ (favorites)
• Books published: 2 ↑

This data includes personal numbers as well, i.e., I didn’t differentiate between work and personal mails (which, to make matters even more blurry, include tool-generated messages as sent by Google Calendar), or between technical and philosophical articles.

Personally

Largely because of my focusing on Miro, the personal side of 2023 only started in June, when Beatriz and I went on a 3,000-kilometer road trip that led us all the way from Hamburg to Venice, and back. We were lucky with the weather—the summer of 2023 was otherwise rather cool and rainy—, and as ambitious as the trip was, staying everywhere only for one night, and driving long stretches in between, everything went smoothly on that end, too.

In July I didn’t only publish a technical book with The Web Development Glossary 3K, I also published a rather philosophical title with The Problems With All the Good Things. It’s AI-supported, but I think you’d like to read it—it drives home a substantial point, one that doesn’t seem to get taught (I hope not “at all,” but not nearly enough). I’ve decided against a counterpoint, though from a philosophical point of view, it would be even more interesting.

In September, Beatriz and I went to the Canaries—as we like to do every year—, for an extended period this time; I’m not sure I’ve ever taken nearly three weeks off for something. Although the fires were still going on, we had a fantastic time.

Also in September, something that p___ed me off quite a bit and that ultimately led me to dropping my three-year venture into esports, Valve shipped Counter-Strike 2—killing it without notice on macOS. I’ve never seen a relaunch as disrespectful and poorly handled as this one. I don’t have fond feelings for Valve, and actually feel somewhat—vengeful.

Activity-wise, I learned to give injections, tried Wing Chun, went on my first gondola cruise, tried diamond painting, studied full-body workout options, and had the questionable pleasure of being asked to identify a felony suspect. (I’m keeping this short, but some of this is likely to make it into the sequel of my 2013 adventure book, 100 Things I Learned as an Everyday Adventurer.)

Statistics

• Photos taken and kept: 1,443 →
• Films watched: 79 ↘ (favorite: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar; terrible: X, Fast X, and Avatar: The Way of Water)
• Workouts done: 75 →
• New specialty coffees tasted (at home): 47 →

❧ This has been my summary of 2023. 2024 just started but already cast a shadow: One major change that I cannot yet announce is coming up in three months time—and if Beatriz and I are lucky, another big one may follow later this year. Stay tuned. The best wishes for a great 2024 to everyone!

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a web developer, manager, and author. I’ve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you’ve never heard of and companies you use every day, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)