Reviewing the ups and downs of this year
This is the first time I have written an annual summary. I don't know where to start. The purpose of building this website this year was to have a place to remember what I have done and the thoughts I have had, and to communicate with others. Since June, I have written a total of 19 articles in half a year. It may not be a lot, but I hope to continue and record more next year. Keep it up! 💪🏻
Life#
Looking back on this year, the theme that runs through the whole year is the pandemic. After the Chinese New Year, I experienced a period of working from home, which lasted for a long time. It made me determined to buy an ergonomic chair. You should know that programmers are a type of occupation that requires long hours of sitting. Just when Shenzhen could return to work normally, Shanghai started a 3-month lockdown. From the initial 72 hours to 48 hours, and finally to 24 hours starting from June, we had to undergo nucleic acid testing every day. After work every day, I still had to worry about not having done the nucleic acid test... Although I have gotten used to it, and even developed a habit, the routine of taking off the mask, opening my mouth, and putting on the mask has become muscle memory.
In December, there was a major policy change in the country. Nucleic acid testing is no longer required, and even if the result is positive, isolation is not necessary. The result is the widespread spread of the virus. People in the company have been infected one after another, and I recently contracted COVID-19 as well. The antigen test result was positive, and I had a fever, runny nose, and coughing, which are the most typical symptoms. It was so uncomfortable to have a fever of 39 degrees. If young people feel so uncomfortable, what should the elderly with underlying diseases do?
After a whole year of nucleic acid testing and lockdown, it has finally come to an end. But our direct confrontation with the virus has just begun. I hope that next year will be better!
Work#
This year can be said to be my first year as a formal programmer (last year was mainly in the internship stage, and the work was unrelated to coding). In this year, I started as a rookie in the team and gradually became familiar with the team's operation, the operation of the work environment, and the coding through delivering one requirement after another. In the first half of the year, I switched from Scala to Java. Although I didn't start learning Scala for long, the transition and adjustment of the language were relatively large, mainly because the overall code architecture framework within the team underwent major changes. But I quickly adapted to the changes and quickly delivered the work. Recently, during the project delivery at the end of the year, I acted as the project leader because the architect in the team was injured. I felt the difficulties and challenges of coordinating work and learned a lot from it.
Overall, I am very satisfied with my professional growth this year. I hope to deepen my knowledge next year.
Input#
Programming#
In terms of programming input this year, I wanted to learn everything, but I couldn't master anything. I only had a superficial understanding of everything, and when I delved deeper, I felt helpless. I know that the best way to learn a technology is to follow a book step by step, but I am afraid of the high sunk cost. I am afraid that if I invest too much time, the cycle will be too long. What if I don't need it after learning it? Such thoughts always interrupt my learning progress, and in the end, I only learn the first few chapters. The later chapters are rarely touched.
Haste makes waste. I hope I can understand this point next year.
Books#
This year, my reading of books can be considered the most in recent years, although the quantity is pitifully small. But reading books is not about quantity, it is about having in-depth communication with the author and understanding their thoughts. This year, I also bought a bookshelf with a total of 5 layers. Three layers are used for books, and two of these three layers are programming-related books, while the remaining layer contains books of various genres.
In summary, I have started reading books, but I still need to cultivate my interest in reading.
Movies#
Due to the pandemic, I have only been to the cinema a few times this year. Instead, I used a home theater as a substitute. In addition, I set up my own library of movies and TV shows using Aliyun Drive + WebDAV (a service built using Docker on Aliyun servers) + Infuse. I also purchased an Apple Studio Display monitor this year (the sound effect is really good). Watching movies at home with this setup is simply amazing.
Music#
Music 🎵-wise, I switched from NetEase Cloud Music to Spotify this year. Although this platform doesn't have the listening history like before (it temporarily won't recommend the songs you want to listen to), it has a lot of resources for listening to music and has expanded the types of music I listen to. It feels great.
As for audio, I developed a new hobby this year, which is listening to podcasts. Listening to podcasts seems retro now, just like using a radio 📻 in my parents' generation. One great advantage of listening to podcasts is that it accompanies you without disturbing you. You can listen while eating, riding a bike, exercising, and even taking a shower. It can truly be done anytime, anywhere. So what's the use of listening to so many podcasts? Let's not talk about whether the content is nutritious. Just in terms of the time spent on information input, it can surpass many video courses. This year, I listened for a total of 253 hours in the aforementioned scenarios, which is longer than many video tutorials. Moreover, listening to podcast content can cover a wide range of topics. Don't listen with the intention of learning something. Just treat it as a collection of fragmented time, which is much better than watching short videos. Accumulate the hidden time in each day (as Liu Yipeng said in "Hidden Time"), and it will be a great wealth. Moreover, podcasts have good continuity. You can continue listening where you left off in the morning when you finish work.
So I will continue to cultivate this hobby of listening to podcasts.
Outlook#
I hope that next year will go smoothly in terms of work, I can make progress in programming, stay healthy, enrich and persist in my hobbies. Ideally, I hope that the post-pandemic era will get better and better, and the world will be peaceful. That's all!