2024 in Retrospect

Year 2024 has come and gone. Number of bones broken this year — only one.

Here are some other thoughts on how I kept busy.

Personal

I bought a motorcycle. It’s a Ducati SuperSport 937. I didn’t think I would ever like motorcycles, but they’ve very much grown on me. Part of it is escapism from a career where I mostly sit in front of a computer. Another part of it is escapism from traffic and high fuel costs. That and as a machine, it’s really rather pretty.

Cars are always becoming more complicated and more expensive, and as time marches on manufacturers are further insulating the driver from the driving experience. Motorcycles don’t seem to be following the same trend, so if you prefer a more immediate and visceral experience, perhaps motorcycles are for you.

Vehicles aside… My ambition roughly this time a year ago was to commit to writing more here, which I utterly failed to do. Let’s see if I do any better this year.

Programming

I appeared on The Haskell Interlude podcast with Wouter Swierstra and Joachim Breitner. This was a really fun chat, which may have been less about strictly Haskell and more about business and pragmatism.

I touched on software craftsmanship as described by Gary Bernhardt, and 2024 has been a year that has made me develop a deeper appreciation for abstraction, decoupling, test-driven design, and keeping tests fast. I’m going to have to write about this more because I have discovered that these ideas aren’t as prevalent as I had thought. That might be the curse of knowledge, or perhaps the software engineering industry is doomed to rediscover the same ideas over and over through the years. Or it might be a network effects thing — perhaps the ideas that software crafstmen were excited by over a decade ago were local to that group, and perhaps in functional programming we just get excited about different things.

Music

This was an awesome music year for me.

I saw Brothertiger in Berlin, GZA (from Wu-Tang Clan) and later also Marc Rebillet in Gdańsk. I finally saw Tool live for the first time after being a big fan for 20 years. Fink came to Warsaw to promote their new album. Also playing in Warsaw were The Midnight, which was essentially one big singalong.

One of the artists I listened to the most over the past couple of years is Plini, and I saw him in Krakow. Opening for both Tool and Plini was the band Night Verses, who were incredible. Before 2024 I had never heard of Night Verses, and then all of a sudden I get to see them twice. Joining Plini on stage was Jakub Żytecki, which was a nice bonus.

Perhaps the biggest surprise, and possibly the greatest live performance I have ever seen in my life, was the Mammal Hands show in Warsaw. If the Jedi were real and they dedicated their time to music instead of laser swords, I think it might be these guys.

Supercede

The startup that I co-founded raised $15 million in its Series A funding round, which is an important milestone for the company and an especially strong signal given the current economic climate where investors are less eager to invest.

Separately, we finally managed to abandon Jira. I never was a fan, and it turns out most of the rest of the team aren’t either. We now manage all product development work directly in GitHub. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely easier having a record of what we plan to do and how we plan to do it directly alongside the work itself. The main benefit I’ve noticed is that people are writing more. Specifications and the results of decisions we make as we work are clearly documented — and are searchable! — in GitHub rather than being lost into the void that is synchronous meetings or ad hoc Slack discussions.

Ukraine

I was living in Ukraine when the russians began their full scale invasion in 2022. I left the country the same morning the tanks rolled across the border, though I returned later that year and spent a few more months living in the apartment I was still renting. I continued to visit in 2023 and 2024 as some of my closest friends live there, and of course owing to the general mobilisation, they aren’t allowed to leave the country.

Needless to say I’m personally invested in the outcome of this war. To help with the defence, I sent two Mavic 3 Pro drones to a Ukrainian battalion working in Donbas. One of the drones was partially funded by a few of my friends (thanks guys!). For the support with equipment, the battalion awarded me their Почесна Відзнака (honorary award) medal.