My Coding Year 2022

After writing about my coding year in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 this is now my 8th year in review article. I love seeing so many others have started to write about their years. These are some great insights that help both the readers and the authors.

For me, these articles are a reminder of what I achieved every year. It is easy to forget what you accomplished, especially the smaller tasks. But altogether, there is always a lot to be proud of. I am proud of myself.

My 2021 Resolutions From Last Year

As always, we start with the resolutions I had for this year:

• Release another product
• A little less client work
• A little more work on my products
• Speaking at a conference on a real stage with real people in front of me
• Make Laracation 2022 happen
• Send A Second 7A Boulder Route
• Don't Compare Myself And Journey To Others

Let's go through each of them.

Release another product ✅

I didn't set this goal very high intentionally. It is always hard to predict how many new products/courses I can do. You cannot force creativity and good ideas.

But I'm happy because I released 3 new courses! First, Spatie and I released Writing Readable PHP, a big success. It was the first time that I teamed up for a course, and to be honest, it was not planned like this :-) But we both are happy with how it turned out.

Then I released my free course Getting Started with TDD in PHP. Over a thousand users have already taken this course, which is still mind-blowing to me.

And finally, in late 2022, I released PEST Driven Laravel, my latest course about building an entire Laravel app with TDD, PEST, and Livewire. I will share more about this release soon.

A little less client work ✅

I achieved this goal, but not intentionally. In mid-2022, I lost a good client of mine. In the following months, I took the time to focus on my courses. As a result, there were a few months in 2022 when I didn't do any client work. It was a good change, but it didn't feel good financially.

A little more work on my products ✅

I worked this year on three video courses. This is a lot!

Speaking at a conference on an actual stage with real people in front of me ✅

In 2022, a few in-person conferences were back. This meant I could finally speak in front of a real audience again. I attended the Laracon EU conference in Amsterdam. I loved it!

Make Laracation 2022 happen ❌

After a wonderful Laracation 2021 (video), I hoped we can do it again in 2022. We couldn't.

But it is ok, since more in-person conferences are coming again. Great experiences ahead. 👀

Send A Second 7A Boulder Route ✅

I was able to send another 7A this year. It is strange, but reaching a new grade feels like now you can climb this regularly. No, you can't :-) Or I can't.

I have to work really hard and long to send a 7A route in our gym. So I'm super happy about the new one, but yeah, it was just this only one in the whole year, which feels odd.

Bouldering still brings me much joy, which is most important to me. So I will keep pushing myself in 2023.

Don't Compare Myself And Journey To Others ❌

I'd say I became a bit better at this, but it is still hard. However, I also believe this won't change. As long as I spend that much time on social platforms like Twitter, I will always feel like there are many other, better devs out there.

And they will always:

• publish more videos than me
• release more products than me
• be more intelligent than me
• have more followers
• be more successful

BUT first, of course, I know that it feels way worse than what it is in reality. You never see how much other devs are struggling with what they do.

And second, it is ok not to be the smartest, fastest, most efficient, or most successful developer. I don't have to be. As long as I can make a living from what I do, and be happy, I will call it a success.

What Else Happened In 2022

My Learning Platform

I build my own learning platform containing all my available courses. It helps me to maintain my current products better, but also be faster in releasing new ones.

I Spoke At Laracon Online

At Laracon Online, I presented a brand-new talk called Christoph Dreams Of Simple Code.

Personally, I believe this was my best talk yet. So I'm pleased with how this one turned out. It was also exceptional because since this conference is free, over a thousand people worldwide were watching live. I repeat, OVER A THOUSAND!

What Is New In Laravel Videos

As a new challenge for myself, I tried to record a What Is New In Laravel video, similar to what Mohamed Said did while he was working at Laravel.

What started as an experiment turned into a series of 10 videos I did about weekly Laravel releases. I had a lot of fun creating those videos and learned much about editing and creating them.

There is a reason I stopped publishing those videos, and I will tell you more about it in an upcoming podcast episode of my podcast.

Laravel Meetup Groningen

I was invited to speak at the local Laravel meetup in Groningen, Netherlands. The meetup was organized Beeproger and they did a really great job. I was also lucky becaue my buddy Freek was invited too, and it was fun seeing each other again.

I Joined A Team

In December 2022, I joined a new team to work part-time on a really really big project. I'm excited about this new challenge and will tell you more about it soon.

My Resolutions For 2023

2023 will be a year with many changes, personally and business-wise. Getting older has shifted my goals over the last year, and it seems this will continue.

I want:

• to be part of a team long-term, but not full-time
• to continue teaching what I learn, but not full-time
• to learn more about the struggles of big projects
• more consistency in the content I publish
• add Twitch support to Larastreamers
• to send a third 7A boulder route
• to focus on staying happy

I wish you all the best for 2023!