It is that time of the year again. 🎉 First, allow make to take this post as an opportunity to wish you all a very happy new year. Had you a rough time in 2015, be sure that it’s now over and 2016 will be a new fresh start. And if you had a wonderful year, then let’s make 2016 even better! In any cases, here are all my wishes to y’all for this new year.
Now, this article is yet another “here is what I’ve done in 2015”. Some would argue it does not belong on this blog (or any other similar blog), but I feel like it’s important to look back and have a glance at what has been and not been done so we can focus more closely on realistic goals for the year to come.
All in all, 2015 was a very fine year, not without a few downs as well though. Here is a (emoji-powered) timeline.
🌍 January 7th. I released Sass Guidelines, one of the biggest projects of my own (currently in version 1.2). Over 15 000 opinionated words about Sass (roughly 50 pages), which have been translated in over 12 languages so far. If this project has taught me anything, it is that internationalisation is hard. But interesting. But hard.
💥 February 5th. I, with SassDoc team, released the second major version of SassDoc, my big project of 2014. It was quite a large launch for us as it involved a complete rewriting, a redesign, a new site, a logo, a lot of tests, and so on. Pretty happy with what we have so far and for good reason: the Zurb Foundation framework is using SassDoc to document all their Sass assets!
📘 February 27th. I released my very first book, CSS 3 Pratique du Design Web. It took me about half of 2014 to write, and I am very proud to see it live. Holding your very first book in your hands is a priceless feeling and hopefully it is something I will renew!
🇩🇪 March 15th. I moved from Grenoble (France) to Berlin (Germany), despite not knowing a single word of German. I learnt a few words since then but it’s still far from ideal. In any case, I learnt to love the city and its how open-minded people. Planning on staying there for a while.
💻 April 1st. I started as a frontend developer at Edenspiekermann in Berlin. Needless to say it has been a very exciting move, and working with so many inspiring people on a daily basis makes me very happy.
🇳🇱 April 2–5th. I visited Amsterdam for the first time (yup, took some holidays directly after my start at ESPI ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). Lovely city, it goes without saying, although super crowded at that time of the year. I am likely to go back there for a talk in the next months.
✒ May 12th. I signed a contract with SitePoint to co-author Jump Start Sass with Miriam Suzanne (author of Susy grid engine), an introduction book to Sass which will be released in February this year (if all goes right).
🔙 May 29th. I moved my site back to Jekyll after roughly a year on Mixture. Took it at an opportunity to freshen up the design and add a few features. Might seem like nothing, but we all know that the project we usually deal the less with is our own site. :)
📝 June 24th. I released in a joint effort with SitePoint the SitePoint Sass Reference, a platform aiming at explaining the Sass buzzwords, mostly targetted at new comers.
❓July 19th. I opened a Ask Me Anything repository and replied to over 50 questions already. Feel free to add your owns!
🏆 July 20th. I made it to the shortlist for the “Developer of the Year” Net Award. At 23, needless to say it is a huge honor. Sara Soueidan later won the well-deserved award on September 21st.
🎤 August 27–28th. I gave a talk entitled Three Years of Purging Sass at Frontend Conference in Zurich. It was a great venue, and as always, a good opportunity to meet all the nice folks from our industry.
🔥 August–September. Some time at the end of the summer, I started suffering from tendonitis on my right wrist, probably (although yet to be confirmed) due to a larger than average amount of stress at that time. To this day, I still happen to feel some pain in the arm, even though I found some tricks to leverage it.
🇹🇷 September 17–21st. I left Europe for the very first time, although didn’t go much further and visited Istanbul. Very interesting city, although probably not one I would like to live in. I have good memories though.
💔 October 4th. I ended a 4 years long relationship with my girlfriend.
✨ November 6th. I built node-legofy with my friend Valérian Galliat, a script to convert your images to mosaics of LEGO. Super fun side project.
💬 December 7th. I created the SJSJ (Simplified JavaScript Jargon) repository as an attempt to make the JavaScript buzzwords a bit less obscure to new comers. I am astonished as how welcome the project is, with already over 1300 stars on GitHub. Keep it up you people!
And that’s pretty much it I guess. Which is already a lot for a single year if you ask me! 2015 is also the year where I started pool (billards) as a serious hobby (quite antinomic some would say). Again, all in all, it was quite a good year, rich in new experiences and people. Let’s hope 2016 gets similar. :)
What about you my friends, how was 2015 for you?