In a rare turn of events, I'm writing this year-in-review in advance of the last few hours of the year. Normally I end up spending New Year's Eve writing it as I rush to publish by midnight.

As I look back on this year and try to remember what all transpired—a process that is hampered by a frustrating lack of notekeeping on my part—I'm left feeling like there wasn't all that much.

Of course, I know this not to be true. Plenty of things happened, but not many that make for tidy bullet points in an itemized record of the year. In many ways this year has felt like stasis, with not much to show in terms of outwardly-visible signs of progress.

Internally, I've been constantly embroiled in battle with my inner thoughts and demons. This unending fight has taxed me both emotionally and physically, and has often left me with little left to give to my family, friends, and my work.

Working on myself has taken up the vast majority of my time and energy this year. During one particularly rough bout I wrote:

I can't think of a time I've been more exhausted than I have been this past week. Sure, there have been other times where I've felt downtrodden by my emotions and heavy thoughts, but there is something so tangibly exhausting about having to face them head-on.

I suppose like pretty much everything else in life, forward progress takes work. It's easier to stay in one place—even if that place is miserable—than it is to take action and move forward.

In the face of all this, I've tried to enjoy the little things when I can find them:

• Having my siblings over for a Lord of the Rings¹ marathon and keeping notes on how many times I tear up or cry²
• Exchanging Strands and Connections results with Heather, and commiserating when the NYT makes them extra difficult
• Taking walks around my neighborhood where I've lived for 7 years and have yet to fully explore
• Hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee with nary a bar of cell phone service
• Sitting in my darkened sunroom during a thunderstorm-induced power outage sipping a Fat Tire while the lightning strikes periodically illuminate the room
• Hanging out in a Montreal coffee shop talking about Rust with some other engineers
• Spending a Sunday afternoon setting up a bird feeder next to my deck
• Watching from the kitchen window as the birds flit around said bird feeder

Turning 30

I turned 30 this year and am still trying to determine how I feel about it.

One recurring theme so far has been reflecting on what I want to do today so that I don't look back and wish I had started it today.

I've found maintaining this future-oriented outlook to be quite difficult when dealing with a multitude of things in the moment.

It reminds me of when I first started learning to drive and I was always looking just a car or two ahead of me (on account of being deathly afraid of hitting them). It wasn't until I took the Pennsylvania Motorcycle Safety Program³ and was taught to look ahead towards your destination that I realized how much of a difference it makes in the awareness of your surroundings.

For motorcycles, in particular, looking right in front of you is actually more detrimental than in a car. For instance, looking directly ahead of you when going into a curve instead of looking through the curve can actually negatively impact your ability to maintain your balance on the bike.

Point being, when all your attention is focused on the here and now, it can be easy to forget to look ahead and see what adjustments need to be made for a better outcome down the road.

New decade, new site

This year marked ten years of this website being online in some shape or form. I had originally intended to write a "10 Years of maxdeviant.com" post, or something of that nature, but the aforementioned struggles of this year got the best of me.

I did, however, ship a rebuild of my site this year. This site is now built by a bespoke static site generator, leveraging Razorbill, and I am excited by the possibilities this affords for the future.

Year of Rust

This was my first year using Rust in a professional capacity, and I could not be happier about it. It's been everything that I had hoped for, and more.

I've observed that, for the first time in my career, the language I'm using largely fades away. I find that I can focus on the problem at hand without being abruptly pulled out of my flow state by reaching for a language feature that doesn't exist. This is something that has routinely frustrated me when working with other languages, and it's a welcome change to have the set of language features that I want at my disposal.

A note on compile times: the rumors are true. Rust can be quite slow to compile once a codebase reaches a certain size. The Zed codebase, for instance, can be a real bear at times. For smaller projects, like my personal ones, I find that compile times are a non-issue. I do hope that further inroads can be made towards improving this, but I find that sacrificing a bit of compilation speed for all the other benefits Rust provides to be a no-brainer.

Lastly, in September I attended RustConf 2024 along with the rest of the Zed team. I had a great time and I enjoyed getting to talk to so many fellow Rustaceans.

Zed

It's hard to believe that we only open-sourced Zed in January of this year! That moment feels like forever ago, and so much has happened since then.

Extension support—a feature I helped build and am deeply proud of—didn't even exist until February.

Zed has come a long way this year. It's been a labor of love and tenacity by the entire team, all of whom I feel incredibly lucky to work with day-to-day. The level of talent and commitment to the craft embodied by my teammates is a sight to behold.

There's still a lot to be done to make it possible for everyone to feel at home in Zed, but I'm confident that we're up to the task.

For a look back at everything that happened in the Zediverse this year, check out the Zed 2024 Recap.

Stats

As always, here's an assortment of stats from this year.

Code

I had an unbroken streak on GitHub of 193 days, from April 1st to October 11th. It would be even longer if I hadn't skipped that one day, but alas.

I'm still quite pleased with my contribution chart:

It's been a good year for me in the Zed repository as well:

Sadly, GitHub no longer shows lines added/deleted once the commit count exceeds 10,000.

Writing

This year I wrote 6,804 words across my various writings (not including this post).

I'd like to bring this number up next year.

Music

My music listening was, once again, down from the previous year. I think this can be partly attributed to the change in work environment: we have a very pairing-heavy culture at Zed, and I can't listen to music while I'm pairing with someone.

Here are the albums that I listened to the most this year:

1. BRAT - Charli xcx
2. cold is the void - and all i can say is
3. Still as the Night, Cold as the Wind - Vital Spirit
4. Dance Fever (Complete Edition) - Florence + The Machine
5. Autumn Eternal - Panopticon
6. Wound - Despite Exile
7. ERRA - ERRA
8. Minecraft - Volume Beta - C418
9. THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT : THE ANTHOLOGY - Taylor Swift
10. Cutting the Throat of God - Ulcerate
11. End of the World - Searows
12. Nature Morte - Penitence Onirique
13. Fiction - Syncatto
14. Illuminate - Harvs
15. Space Diver - Boris Brejcha
16. Every Sound Has A Color In The Valley Of Night - Night Verses
17. Of Mice & Men - Of Mice & Men
18. ONI//KIJO - Memorist
19. Love Exchange Failure - White Ward
20. Triade III : Nyx - Aara

(*Fin)

If there is one thing I am leaving 2024 with, it's a renewed desire for finding balance in my life. The pendulum continues to swing too far in either direction, dragging me with it from one extreme to another.

I came into the year with a goal of "devising a system for sustaining my ideal lifestyle", and I have yet to achieve it.

To all of you who have been there for me this year: thank you. I know I've been distant for much of it, so I deeply appreciate your steadfast camaraderie in spite of that.

I look forward to what the new year will bring.