2023-12-24

2023 retrospective

 Kind of personal. As 2024 approaches, looking back how 2023 has been for me and people around. 



In my family the year has completed the cycle of learning. All kids graduated in the subjects of their choice. Myself personally gone over being the performing force to the subject of steering the things around. The initiatives from ideas and POCs become real projects thanks to colleagues and management in Bluescape. This has laid the foundation for a new role I am looking forward to take for next year as the founder and owner in the Cyber Security space. The final separation from Bluescape had cut off the unnecessary obligations, opening the clean and fresh start. 


What 2023 taught me? The motto “BE CURIOUS, LEARN AND ADOPT KNOWLEDGE, SEEK THE PATH, STATE THE GOALS AND OVERCOME” become a powerful set of principles. The curiosity on things around along with learning and comparing allowed me to approach the challenges as on business as on technology sides. The curiosity extended to the team’ challenges, along with learning following the discoveries and sharing brought people closer. Resulting in efficient cooperation and expanding the personal abilities to the team synergy. It also exposed that working in the team is a level of magnitude more efficient. 


In 2023 AI has stepped into professional life. Not much as the syntax and ‘tune’ checker for public writing, but rather an efficient helper on search services for relatively simple solutions which are not yet covered by someone’s blog or Q&A site like stackoverflow or Reddit. The coding with AI itself is not yet powerful, though great for algorithm and unit tests stubs generation.


AI vs team. The AI at its current level is not a replacement for a team at all. It allowed me to write up my own thoughts, but when it comes to cognitive analysis and critical thinking, there is no replacement for a team. Next year, I plan to try different AI services as it has been proven to be a great time saver.


Once again, the statement “in software there is no impossible, it is just a matter of time and available resources” have been proven. Ability to explore the options from different angles and not limiting to seem to be easiest solutions, allowed to beat the border between native executable and web microapplication. The nodeJs CLI app can be packaged as native executable. But there was no reference on how to make it in-browser application. The answer was in implementing node APIs when assembling the web app. Many Open Source projects paved the base for the Cloud version of CLI I made, which inspired me to contribute more to OSS. 


2023 being an apogee in my OSS efforts. With the help of web stack leaders from W3C groups, the Declarative Web Application has been shaped into a useful NO-JS UI platform, with Declarative Custom Element at the forefront. Apparently that became an answer to the Cyber Security Office challenge on safe programming languages, frameworks and app engines. The RFI we created would lay out the basis for my activities for the next few years. However, to make a real impact, the idea must become a sustainable business. This is another challenge I plan to tackle in 2024.


Be Dragon in you! Wise and powerful.

-s