2024: Year in Review | The Renegade Coder

Look, I know it's late, but you'll have to forgive me! These annual reviews a long time to reflect on and write. Accomplishments in 2024 2024 was an action packed year for me! Just take a look. Had a kiddo! Earned my doctorate in Engineering Education Wrote a 190 page dissertation Secured a role in a study abroad program Planned a bachelor party for my best friend Served as best man for my best friend's wedding Started and almost caught up in the One Piece manga (caught up in 2025) Also, got into manga more generally with Mieruko-chan, Rent-a-Girlfriend, Made in Abyss, Watari-kun, and more! Bought my first car Held my first baby shower and diaper party Converted one of my courses from Eclipse and Subversion to VS Code and git Played a lot of video games including Overwatch 2, Pokerogue, Risk of Rain 2, Marvel Rivals, Baldur's Gate 3, Disco Elysium, Terraria, No Man's Sky, and more! Most of the action was having a kid and finishing my degree, but I got to say that there was a ton I forgot about. In fact, it wasn't until I was going through some pictures of the last year that I realized just how much happened. How's that for a segue? Favorite Photos of 2024 2024 is the year I had my first kid! As a result, there are a lot of photos I would love to share, but I have to be really careful about that. I don't think my daughter deserves to have her photo posted everywhere, and I certainly don't trust the internet to treat her photo with respect. As a result, whatever I share of her below will be obviously censored. Just know that like 90% of all photos I took in 2024 were of her—despite how self-centered the following photos might appear. With that said, here are some of my favorites from the last year! Overall, it's really nice to look back over these pictures and think about all the great experiences I had. Perhaps next year, I'll take the time to properly censor the photos with my daughter. Favorite Creations of 2024 In 2024, I wrote just as much as always. This year, I stuck to writing once a week, with most of my favorite articles focused on education. Take a peek! January 2024: What Do People Mean When They Say “From Scratch”? Y'all know I love to discuss software philosophy, so when I had a chance to unpack the term "from scratch," I took it! February 2024: Celebrating My Late Mother’s 54th Birthday There were a lot of contenders this month, but family is always going to transcend work for me. March 2024: Top Reasons Why You Don’t Need to Take Attendance (And Why I Do It Anyway) Sometimes I like to take some time to reflect on my teaching philosophy. I think this piece wonderfully captures a piece of it. April 2024: Modeling a Simple Relational Database Using CSVs and Python I like this piece because it showcases a project I had been working on while also teaching folks how to do something similar. May 2024: Google Threatens to Ruin Search as We Know It In May, I seem to have developed a distain for Google and its search engine. In fact, I wrote an entire separate article on how bad the indexing algorithm has gotten. This is one of those takes that has seemingly gotten better with age (especially given that Google has completely capitulated to the petty desires of Trump and Elon in 2025). June 2024: 6 Tips for New College and University Educators I suppose I couldn't make it long without writing to future educators. I just like this piece for what it could provide to others. July 2024: All But Dissertation: The Light at the End of the Tunnel Looking back, talking about being so close to finishing in July is really a trip for me. It's so nice to be on the other side of the doctoral gauntlet. August 2024: A Preview of My Last Semester As a PhD Student Again, I know not a lot of coding articles have made their way into my top creations, and I think the reason for that is that my "why" for writing has changed. I want to educate more through narrative (i.e., break down real experiences and reflect on them). September 2024: What Is Operator Overloading in Python? Okay, fine! Sometimes I like to brag about how amazing Python is as a language, and I think this article really gets at one of my favorite features. It's especially fun to cover given that I teach Java, which doesn't have operator overloading, every day. October 2024: The Problem Enums Are Intended to Solve Late last year, I was having a heard time pitching enums to folks who use Java. After all, there seems to be a culture of "eh, strings are good enough," where we should have a culture of minimizing future pain. I hope this article serves that purpose. November 2024: I Successfully Completed My PhD in Engineering Education So many contenders in the month of November, but I have to hand it to my most important achievement of the last six years. December 2024: Summarizing My Dissertation for the Layman Given that I also spent the last two years working on a dissertation, it's no surprise that I'm ending the year with talking about it. In 2025, I look forward to continuing to write about education, but I also want to get back to my roots. If I don't write about Python, I might forget it! 5-Year Metrics One of the most boring parts of piecing together this annual review is filling out these tables, BUT I do like to look at the tables. So, it's a bit of a toss up. Anyway, the site is in a bit of a decline, which I blame partially on generative AI and partially on Google just getting worse as a search engine. Of course, I am sure my shift to education isn't doing much for the site's success. That said, when have I ever written anything for anyone other than myself? Maybe that's the "problem!" Regardless, we'll keep writing! As a reminder, you can see most of these stats directly through Plausible, but the summaries below should be enough. Page Views: Months & Years As mentioned previously, 2024 was a major downturn for the site. Overall, the site received about half of the views it received in previous years. It's tough to say exactly why because it's not like I deleted articles. You would expect it to perform roughly the same or better, but I suppose we'll see in the later sections if any of the usual traffic sources fell off. Month20202021202220232024Jan21.1k11.8k13.7k25.3k8.4kFeb24.8k11.6k14k25.5k10.2kMar21.9k13.9k14.4k23.2k10.2kApr18.8k13.9k13.4k18.1k8.3kMay17k11.5k14.1k18.2k6.5kJun13.5k11.7k13.8k14.9k5.4kJul13.9k10.3k14.6k14.7k5kAug16k12.1k14.7k15.2k6.7kSep15.4k11.9k18.1k15.7k9.6kOct17.3k13.7k21k12.1k9.4kNov15.4k13.6k22.9k10.3k6.7kDec12.2k12.7k22.7k8.5k6.2kTotal208k149k198k202k93.2k Top Posts & Pages For me, it's always a bummer when I see Hello World in Brainfuck at the top of the site. While the article is excellent, I didn't write it! It's one of a handful of guest posts that has seemingly taken over my site. That said, what is perhaps an even bigger bummer for me is that these popular pieces are the same every year. I would love for a new article to sneak its way into the top five, but I guess we'll try again next year! Rank20202021202220232024#1How to Check if a List is Empty in Python 19.9k viewsHow to Increment a Number in Python 12.3k viewsHello World in Brainfuck22.9k viewsHow to Increment a Number in Python33.9k viewsHello World in Brainfuck17.9k views#2Python Code Snippets for Everyday Problems14.4k views How to Performance Test Python Code11.9k viewsHow to Performance Test Python Code17.6k viewsHello World in Brainfuck22.2k viewsHow to Increment a Number in Python4.8k views#3How to Invert a Dictionary in Python 9.3k viewsPython Code Snippets for Everyday Problems11.4k viewsHow to Increment a Number in Python16.9k viewsHow to Performance Test Python Code9k viewsPython Code Snippets for Everyday Problems4.1k views#4How to Performance Test Python Code 8.6k viewsHello World in Brainfuck10.6k viewsHow to Open a File in Python9.7k viewsHow to Open a File in Python7.4k viewsHello World in Lisp3.6k views#5How to Print on the Same Line in Python8.2k viewsHow to Open a File in Python4.9k viewsPython Code Snippets for Everyday Problems7.2k viewsPython Code Snippets for Everyday Problems6.5k viewsHow to Performance Test Python Code2.3k views Top Sources of Traffic Well, it looks like we got our answer. I wasn't kidding when I said that Google's indexing algorithm has gotten objectively worse, at least when it comes to my content. How does Google suddenly decide to nuke my entire site from its search engine? Though, maybe it isn't Google's fault at all. After all, it looks like Bing hasn't been too kind to me either. Maybe people are just using it less in favor of other tools like TikTok and ChatGPT. I really don't have a feel for this at all, so I'm just speculating. However, that kind of drop off is jarring—especially considering that I'm seeing growth on DuckDuckGo and Yandex (though, DuckDuckGo has fallen off in the long term). On the plus side, there are tons of sites now referring to mine, which is driving more stable traffic. For instance, Wikipedia and FreeCodeCamp drove me about 1,000 visitors last year. Rank20202021202220232024#1Google92.9k viewsGoogle74.8k viewsGoogle136k viewsGoogle152k viewsGoogle46k views#2Bing22.3k views Bing24.9k views Bing23k viewsDirect21.9k viewsDirect17.5k views#3DuckDuckGo19.2k views DuckDuckGo20.6k views Direct17.5k viewsBing13.5k viewsBing9k views#4Yahoo3.9k views Ecosia3.8k viewsDuckDuckGo11.1k views DuckDuckGo5.2k viewsDuckDuckGo8.8k views#5Ecosia3.1k views Yahoo3.5k viewsYahoo2.7k viewsYandex3.6k viewsYandex4.7k views#6Dev2.2k viewsDev869 viewsYandex2k viewsYahoo1.8k viewsYahoo1.2k views#7GitHub1.3k viewsGitHub682 viewsEcosia1.9k viewsEcosia874 viewsBrave974 views#8TopDev810 viewsYandex557 viewsGitHub449 viewsGitHub320 viewsWikipedia817 views#9Edabit550 viewsQwant471 viewsQwant370 viewsStartpage218 viewsFreeCodeCamp755 views#10Qwant500 viewsEdabit216 viewsStartPage196 viewsQwant161 viewsEcosia583 views Top Countries I don't have much to say about the countries. Nothing seems really out of the ordinary. Rank20202021202220232024#1United States of America57.6k views United States of America44.3k viewsUnited States of America61.3k viewsUnited States of America68k viewsUnited States of America21.5k views#2India20.9k views India17.4k viewsIndia23.4k viewsIndia23.3k viewsIndia9.9k views#3Germany14.2k views United Kingdom8.4k viewsUnited Kingdom10.2k viewsUnited Kingdom10.2k viewsRussia7.9k views#4United Kingdom10.5k views Germany8.2k viewsGermany9.8k viewsGermany9.7k viewsGermany4k views#5Canada7.7k views Canada5.7k viewsCanada8k viewsRussia8.1k viewsUnited Kingdom3.8k views#6France5.3k views France4.4k viewsFrance5.5k viewsCanada7.1k viewsBrazil3.4k views#7Australia3.8k viewsRussia3.8k viewsRussia5.4k viewsFrance5k viewsFrance3k views#8Netherlands3.6k viewsNetherlands2.9k viewsBrazil4.1k viewsBrazil3.9k viewsCanada2.6k views#9Brazil3.3k viewsAustralia2.9k viewsAustralia3.9k viewsAustralia3.8k viewsPoland1.8k views#10Russia2.7k viewsBrazil2.5k viewsNetherlands3.6k viewsNetherlands3.3k viewsPhilippines1.5k views Top YouTube Videos A few years back, I started a YouTube channel. To be honest, I haven't touched it in ages. That said, it doesn't hurt to see how views are doing. If anything, this is a small case study in the decay of a channel. That said, it seems like I'm still getting a few hundred views a year! I'm kind of impressed. In total, I gained 9 subscribers and received 825 views on an otherwise dead channel. I even got 24 hours of watch time somehow. Not bad! Rank20202021202220232024#13 Ways to Element-Wise Sum Two Lists in Python974 views3 Ways to Map Two Lists to a Dict in Python876 views3 Ways to Map Two Lists to a Dict in Python704 views3 Ways to Element-Wise Sum Two Lists in Python196 views3 Ways to Compare Strings in Python224#24 Ways to Reverse a Dictionary in Python571 views3 Ways to Element-Wise Sum Two Lists in Python592 views4 Ways to Reverse a Dictionary in Python489 views4 Ways to Reverse a Dictionary in Python180 views4 Ways to Reverse a Dictionary in Python142#33 Ways to Map Two Lists to a Dict in Python353 views4 Ways to Reverse a Dictionary in Python511 views3 Ways to Element-Wise Sum Two Lists in Python434 views3 Ways to Compare Strings in Python156 views3 Ways to Element-Wise Sum Two Lists in Python133#43 Ways to Check If a List Is Empty in Python214 views3 Ways to Compare Strings in Python457 views3 Ways to Compare Strings in Python423 views3 Ways to Map Two Lists to a Dict in Python135 views3 Ways to Map Two Lists to a Dict in Python98#54 Ways to Get the Last Element of a List in Python143 views4 Ways to Get the Last Element of a List in Python408 views 4 Ways to Get the Last Element of a List in Python316 views4 Ways to Get the Last Element of a List in Python89 views4 Ways to Get the Last Element of a List in Python89 Total Revenue Now, we get to the fun part! To start, here's my Patreon revenue. In short, I made a bit more money over the last two years, but it's definitely not my best year. Month20202021202220232024Jan$17.37$18.14$13.99$9.07$9.07Feb$17.37$18.14 $13.99$9.07$9.07Mar$17.37$18.14 $13.99$9.07$9.07Apr$17.37$18.14 $13.99$9.07$9.07May$23.75$18.14 $13.22$9.07$13.22Jun$23.75$18.14 $9.07$4.92$13.22Jul$23.74$18.14 $9.07$4.92$13.22Aug$23.74$18.14 $9.07$9.07$13.22Sep$23.75$18.14 $9.07$9.07$13.22Oct$23.75$18.14 $9.07$9.07$13.22Nov$18.14$9.84$9.07$9.07$13.22Dec$18.14$9.84$9.07$9.07$17.37Total$248.24$201.08$132.67$100.54$146.19Revenue from Patreon by month and year Next, we'll take a look at earnings from Amazon. Keep in mind that most of the money I make is from TrillTrombone, but I still list it here. I made all of 40 cents from affiliate marketing on TheRenegadeCoder last year. Regardless, I'll take it! Month20202021202220232024Jan$1.49$4.23$20.51$20.62$15.32Feb$0.00$14.30$11.03$12.53$5.19Mar$12.70$8.51$9.53$14.62$4.11Apr$11.63$8.18$4.71$7.47$5.94May$0.90$6.09$7.50$8.53$9.47Jun$12.78$4.12$2.82$0.28$6.92Jul$0.98$2.66$0.37$9.27$5.38Aug$0.94$2.20$12.21$26.95$10.13Sep$0.62$4.37$8.97$19.71$12.90Oct$0.38$9.84$34.35$31.02$4.67Nov$8.59$10.84$18.70$28.19$4.57Dec$7.24$4.39$18.47$85.76$22.78Total$58.25$79.73$149.17$264.95$104.89Revenue from Amazon by month and year Finally, ad revenue is somewhat of a silly topic given how much viewership I lost, but I'll share it anyway. In short, I didn't even make enough to receive a payout for the year. Month20202021202220232024Jan$0.00$2.72$7.91$9.20$5.99Feb$0.00$8.34$12.37$11.55$2.68Mar$0.00$9.23$12.61$9.01$2.31Apr$0.00$8.76$2.48$12.59$1.58May$0.00$6.27$4.40$7.35$1.34Jun$0.00$10.98$9.19$9.34$1.24Jul$0.00$7.67$5.64$11.46$0.85Aug$0.00$7.23$6.23$4.60$1.68Sep$0.00$14.55$8.41$11.25$2.25Oct$0.00$18.63$12.09$3.12$1.49Nov$0.00$18.99$10.37$4.95$1.82Dec$0.00$10.89$9.78$5.53$2.22Total$0.00$124.26$101.50$99.95$25.45Revenue from ads by month and year In the year 2024, it looks like I made about $276.45. Next, we'll see how that compares to how much I spent on the site. Total Expenses Now, let's take a look at how much I sink into this site! Hobbies are always expensive, I suppose. Month20232024January$0.00$0.00February$87.00$77.00March$0.00$17.00April$100.00$264.26May$410.23$506.74June$34.00$51.00July$0.00$0.00August$17.00$17.00September$0.00$0.00October$0.00$0.00November$0.00$0.00December$0.00$0.00Total$648.23$933.00Expenses by month and year If you're curious what some of these expenses include, it's mostly hosting and domains. In addition, I pay for a handful of helpful tools like Plausible for analytics and WordFence for security. Surely I could scale back if I really needed the money. Net Income As you can probably imagine, the site eats up a lot of my personal income. I could probably scale back, but I enjoy doing this. Maybe in the future it will pay for itself. That said, based on historical revenue, I don't see that happening any time soon. YearRevenueExpensesNet Income2024$276.45$(933.00)$(656.47)2023$465.44$(648.23)$(182.79)2022$383.34--2021$405.07--2020$306.49--2019$266.73--2018$49.96--Total$2,183.48$(1581.23)$602.25Income by year As a reminder, there is expense data missing from this chart. I am certain I've sunk multiple thousands of dollars into the site since 2018, but that's part of the fun! A Look Into 2025 By the time this article publishes, we'll already be quite deep into 2025. That said, there's a lot to look forward to. For instance, I'm traveling to Japan in May of this year. Likewise, I am planning to go to my first stadium series game at the beginning of march, and we even have camping planned for June! Who knows what the second half of 2025 will hold? As always, thanks for taking a peek at my annual review. Maybe next year I'll actually publish it in time. Until then, feel free to read one of my previous reviews: 2023: Year in Review 2022: Year in Review 2021: Year in Review 2020: Year in Review 2019: Year in Review Of course, after seeing my take home pay from the site, I'm sure you're looking to support me more. If so, check out my list of ways to grow the site. Otherwise, I'll see you next year!