2024: A Year of Firsts, Growth, and Open Source
As the year comes to a close, I’m reflecting on 2024—a year marked by creative breakthroughs, open-source achievements, and significant milestones. Here's what I've accomplished and learned this year.
I'm gonna be upfront and mention that ChatGPT helped me write this blog post — particularly because I think it comes off a bit too arrogant and humorless.
But when I initially tried implementing a "versioned" blog post where I displayed the various iterations of ChatGPT's assistance ("that's great, but maybe be more humble and add a bit of humor"), I fell down a rabbit hole of MDX mess overcomplicating things and it ate an entire day 🙃
🚀 Firsts That Defined My Year
2024 was full of firsts for me as a developer. I ventured into uncharted territory with several projects and tools:
- Chrome Extension: My first foray into browser extensions came with building Eye Guard, an accessibility tool to reduce eye strain by customizing website backgrounds.
- Obsidian Plugin: I created Obsidian Edge TTS, enabling text-to-speech functionality powered by the Microsoft Edge API.
- Published NPM Package: Launched edge-tts-client, a tool for developers to integrate Edge's text-to-speech functionality into their projects.
- Docker Image: Packaged tools for easier distribution, a significant learning experience in containerization.
- Homebrew Tap: Created a Homebrew tap for my CLI tool, GPTree, making installation seamless with the
brewcommand. - CLI Tool: Designed and launched GPTree, which helps developers explore and share project structures with LLMs. It’s now available on both npm and Homebrew.
- PyPI Package: Brought my Python skills to the table by publishing a package to PyPI for developers to install with
pip. - Telegram Bot: Experimented with a Telegram bot (not open-source), showcasing another dimension of automation.
These projects reflect a major leap in my skills and confidence, as I tackled platforms and technologies I hadn’t explored before.
⭐ Open Source: From 0 to 350 Stars
Open source became a defining theme of my year. At the start of 2024, my GitHub projects collectively had fewer than five stars. By the end of the year, that number skyrocketed to over 350 stars, with major contributions including:
- OpenAI Edge TTS: An open-source package integrating Microsoft's Edge API for TTS functionality.
- GPTree: A CLI tool helping developers interact with and share project file structures, gaining significant attention.
- Obsidian Edge TTS: Bringing text-to-speech to Obsidian users.
- Supabase Pause Prevention: A utility to prevent Supabase projects from going dormant.
I also made my first contribution to a major open-source project, Open WebUI, by writing documentation for my embed.
📈 By the Numbers
- 1,776 GitHub contributions in 2024—almost quadrupling my contributions from 2023 (481) and leaving 2022 (157) in the dust.
- Automated Deployments: Embraced GitHub workflows to automate updates for projects like Obsidian Edge TTS and GPTree.
- Self-Hosting N8N: Wrote workflows to automate everything from email parsing to analytics updates, saving time and adding reliability to my processes.
🌟 Major Projects
- AlsoAt: My flagship project, allowing users to link all their social profiles in a sleek, customizable way. It stands as my most significant accomplishment this year.
- German Genders App: A tool to make mastering German noun genders more accessible for language learners.
- 2000s Games: A nostalgic homage to classic Flash games, preserving them for a new generation of players.
💻 Modernizing My Workflow
This year, I adopted new tools and approaches that reshaped my development workflow:
- AI as a Daily Companion: While I initially had buyer's remorse after subscribing to ChatGPT Plus in March, GPT-4o’s release in May turned AI into an indispensable part of my daily work.
- Next.js 14: Transitioned to the new server component model, navigating its challenges and successes. While caching issues were frustrating, I’ve adopted a philosophy of “bleeding responsibly” and look forward to Next.js 15.
🎨 Revamped My Portfolio
I transformed my portfolio this year, moving from a static resume to an interactive and evolving space. By incorporating resources, blog posts, and dynamic features, I’ve created reasons for visitors to return, showcasing not just my work but my growth as a developer.
🌐 Cloudflare Workers & Analytics
To improve privacy and reliability, I deployed Cloudflare Workers to proxy analytic requests for tools like PostHog and Umami, ensuring data collection without triggering ad-blockers. This added layer of complexity improved both performance and user trust.
Looking Ahead
2024 was a year of growth, experimentation, and community engagement. As I look toward 2025, I’m excited to build on this momentum, take my projects further, and continue learning.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to my journey this year—whether by starring a repo, giving feedback, or sharing insights. Here’s to another year of innovation and collaboration!