2022: Year in Review

2022: Year in Review Featured Image

2022 was a weird year as we transitioned out of the pandemic (though, I did get COVID). In it, I managed to turn 28, pass my candidacy exam, and travel to see my friends and family. Who knows what 2023 will bring, but 2022 was a year to remember. Let’s talk about it!

But before we do that, I wanted to start the year off right by trying to get my mom some extra help. If you didn’t know, she’s been battling small cell lung cancer since 2021. More recently, she’s started some clinical trials that’ll involve a lot of costly travel. If you have a moment, I’d love it if you could give the GoFundMe a shareOpens in a new tab. and even donate if you have a few bucks to spare. We appreciate it!

And without further ado, let’s look back over 2022 with The Renegade Coder.

Table of Contents

Accomplishments in 2022

In 2022, life went somewhat back to normal, for better or worse. Regardless, I did a bit of traveling finally. That said, nothing too special this year. Here’s the list I had off the top of my head:

  • Passed my Candidacy Exam
  • Beat Cyberpunk 2077
  • Turned 28
  • I won another teaching award
  • Watched a lot of movies, series, and anime
  • Continued my Duolingo streak to 1700+ days
  • Visited family for holidays
  • Expanded several open-source libraries including SnakeMD
  • Finished taking college classes forever
  • Visited Vegas for the first time
  • Watched a buddy get engaged and another get married
  • Went camping, again
  • Caught up with some old friends
  • Went to my 10-year high school reunion
  • Watched a lot of hockey
  • Ate a lot of food
  • Mentored a hackathon
  • Got COVID

Obviously, I’m most stoked about passing my candidacy exam. I’m in the last leg of my degree, and I’m excited to get it done!

Favorite Photos of 2022

Just like last year, I figured I’d share some of my favorite photos of the last year (apologies for the formatting; WordPress galleries are broken in version 6.1.1):

You can definitely tell I spent a lot more time with family and friends this year. It feels good to look at these.

Favorite Creations of 2022

As usual, I like to share my favorite articles and videos that I created in the past year. Here’s the list:

As usual, I don’t really plan out future content, but I’ll be posting once a week as always.

Projects in 2022

Normally, I would take some time to cover all my projects of the year in detail, but I’m trying to simplify these annual posts a bit. As a result, I’ll just share a list of some of my favorite projects of the year:

  • SnakeMDOpens in a new tab.: this has been a fun project for me. In short, it’s a Python library for generating markdown. At first, I made it just to be able to automate portions of the Sample Programs repo, but it turned into so much more. I hope folks are enjoying it.
  • PymonOpens in a new tab.: there’s a whole article on Pymon, but the short story is that she’s a Discord bot for one of the courses I teach. Students love her!
  • Health DashboardOpens in a new tab.: at some point, I started caring more about my wellness. Out of that passion came this cool dashboard which catalog’s my efforts to stay healthy. Definitely something I want to expand in the future.
  • Educator DashboardOpens in a new tab.: like the health dashboard, but this one shares information about my life as an educator. It includes all sorts of awesome graphics showing my journey.
  • Mage GameOpens in a new tab.: in the summer of 2022, I got interested in game development in Python. As a result, I ended up making a little 2D mage sandbox game. I’d love to keep working on it at some point.

In the future, I’m not sure what I’ll focus on, but these were a lot of fun in 2022.

5-Year Metrics

In the the past, I’d usually use this space to share all the data I’ve collected about the site. Seeing as we’re in year 6 of the site, it’s become a bit messy. As a result, I’ve opted for cutting this section down to the last 5 years of data. If you want to see the history of this website, feel free to use my Plausible dashboardOpens in a new tab.. Otherwise, here’s the latest.

Page Views: Months & Years

As usual, here are my page view stats by month and year from 2018 to 2022:

Month20182019202020212022
Jan42719.1k21.1k11.8k13.7k
Feb39716.2k24.8k11.6k14k
Mar1.1k31.0k21.9k13.9k14.4k
Apr1.3k45.4k18.8k13.9k13.4k
May1.4k52.7k17k11.5k14.1k
Jun78026.7k13.5k11.7k13.8k
Jul1.7k19.8k13.9k10.3k14.6k
Aug1.9k19.9k16k12.1k14.7k
Sep5.7k22.5k15.4k11.9k18.1k
Oct10.9k17.8k17.3k13.7k21k
Nov9.9k15.0k15.4k13.6k22.9k
Dec13.9k11.8k12.2k12.7k22.7k
Total49.6k298k208k149k198k

Overall, I’m very pleased with the page view stats in 2022. These are the highest stats I’ve had heading into a new year, so I expect the growth to explode. That said, I am a little concerned that one of my articles is carrying all the traffic again, but I’ll talk about that later.

Top Posts & Pages

As always, here are the top performing posts and pages that led to the website growth in 2022:

Rank20182019202020212022
#1How to Check if a File Exists in Python
27.2k views
How to Check if a File Exists in Python
148k views
How to Check if a List is Empty in Python 
19.9k views
How to Increment a Number in Python
12.3k views
Hello World in Brainfuck
22.9k views
#2How to Sum Elements of Two Lists in Python
5.4k views
How to Check if a List is Empty in Python
65.6k views
Python Code Snippets for Everyday Problems
14.4k views 
How to Performance Test Python Code
11.9k views
How to Performance Test Python Code
17.6k views
#3How to Convert Two Lists into a Dictionary in Python 
2.7k views
How to Sum Elements of Two Lists in Python 
14k views
How to Invert a Dictionary in Python 
9.3k views
Python Code Snippets for Everyday Problems
11.4k views
How to Increment a Number in Python
16.9k views
#4How to Invert a Dictionary in Python 
1.9k views
How to Invert a Dictionary in Python
13.3k views
How to Performance Test Python Code 
8.6k views
Hello World in Brainfuck
10.6k views
How to Open a File in Python
9.7k views
#5Archives
1.5k views
How to Convert Two Lists Into a Dictionary in Python
10.1k views
How to Print on the Same Line in Python
8.2k views
How to Open a File in Python
4.9k views
Python Code Snippets for Everyday Problems
7.2k views

While the spread of top posts isn’t as top heavy as in years past, I am somewhat concerned about this distribution going forward. Most recently, the increment post has skyrocketed to over a 1000 visitors a week. That means we could be seeing a trend like 2019 again when that post inevitably falls in ranking. That said, I suppose I’ll ride that high for as long as I can.

Top Sources of Traffic

Once again, here are the last 5 years of page view sources:

Rank20182019202020212022
#1GoogleOpens in a new tab.
39k views
GoogleOpens in a new tab.
259K views
GoogleOpens in a new tab.
92.9k views
GoogleOpens in a new tab.
74.8k views
GoogleOpens in a new tab.
136k views
#2GitHub
809 views
DuckDuckGoOpens in a new tab.
4.8k views
BingOpens in a new tab.
22.3k views
BingOpens in a new tab.
24.9k views
BingOpens in a new tab.
23k views
#3BingOpens in a new tab.
451 views
BingOpens in a new tab.
4.8k views
DuckDuckGoOpens in a new tab.
19.2k views
DuckDuckGoOpens in a new tab.
20.6k views
Direct
17.5k views
#4Google+
266 views
WordPress Android App
1.3k views
Yahoo
3.9k views
Ecosia
3.8k views
DuckDuckGoOpens in a new tab.
11.1k views
#5WordPress Reader
247 views
GitHub
967 views
Ecosia
3.1k views
Yahoo
3.5k views
Yahoo
2.7k views
#6Twitter
246 views
Yahoo Search
777 views
Dev
2.2k views
Dev
869 views
Yandex
2k views
#7DuckDuckGoOpens in a new tab.
215 views
Ecosia
522 views
GitHub
1.3k views
GitHub
682 views
Ecosia
1.9k views
#8Facebook
193 views
Twitter
289 views
TopDev
810 views
Yandex
557 views
GitHub
449 views
#9Instagram
86 views
Qwant
160 views
Edabit
550 views
Qwant
471 views
Qwant
370 views
#10YahooOpens in a new tab.
85 views
Yandex
144 views
Qwant
500 views
Edabit
216 views
StartPage
196 views

Again, I’m a little nervous about these trends given that Google has exploded to the top again while other sources have dropped. I’m not sure what that says exactly, but it’s a concerning trend for sure.

Top Countries

I always find it interesting to see where my traffic comes from in terms of geography. Obviously, I imagine most of it comes from the US, but it’s cool to see the other places as well:

Rank20182019202020212022
#1United States of America
20,949 views
United States of America
115,649 views
United States of America
57.6k views
United States of America
44.3k views
United States of America
61.3k views
#2India
6,230 views
India
33,496 views
India
20.9k views
India
17.4k views
India
23.4k views
#3United Kingdom
2,581 views
United Kingdom
14,206 views
Germany
14.2k views
United Kingdom
8.4k views
United Kingdom
10.2k views
#4Canada
1,716 views
Germany
13,664 views
United Kingdom
10.5k views
Germany
8.2k views
Germany
9.8k views
#5Germany
1,517 views
Canada
11,003 views
Canada
7.7k views
Canada
5.7k views
Canada
8k views
#6France
1,066 views
France
8,636 views
France
5.3k views
France
4.4k views
France
5.5k views
#7Australia
807 views
Brazil
6,097 views
Australia
3.8k views
Russia
3.8k views
Russia
5.4k views
#8Israel
718 views
Australia
5,445 views
Netherlands
3.6k views
Netherlands
2.9k views
Brazil
4.1k views
#9Brazil
685 views
Netherlands
4,847 views
Brazil
3.3k views
Australia
2.9k views
Australia
3.9k views
#10Netherlands
611 views
Spain
4,237 views
Russia
2.7k views
Brazil
2.5k views
Netherlands
3.6k views

As usual, nothing is too surprising here. Only surprise right now is the jump in views from Brazil, but everything else lines up with history.

Top YouTube Videos

In 2022, I did not make a single YouTube video. Obviously, I would have liked to, but it’s not exactly winning the competition with grad school at the moment. We’ll see how things go in the future. Anyway, here are the top videos since I started the channel:

Rank2019202020212022
#13 Ways to Check If a List Is Empty in PythonOpens in a new tab.
232 views
3 Ways to Element-Wise Sum Two Lists in PythonOpens in a new tab.
974 views
3 Ways to Map Two Lists to a Dict in PythonOpens in a new tab.
876 views
3 Ways to Map Two Lists to a Dict in PythonOpens in a new tab.
704 views
#24 Ways to Reverse a Dictionary in PythonOpens in a new tab.
146 views
4 Ways to Reverse a Dictionary in PythonOpens in a new tab.
571 views
3 Ways to Element-Wise Sum Two Lists in PythonOpens in a new tab.
592 views
4 Ways to Reverse a Dictionary in PythonOpens in a new tab.
489 views
#33 Ways to Element-Wise Sum Two Lists in PythonOpens in a new tab.
142 views
3 Ways to Map Two Lists to a Dict in PythonOpens in a new tab.
353 views
4 Ways to Reverse a Dictionary in PythonOpens in a new tab.
511 views
3 Ways to Element-Wise Sum Two Lists in PythonOpens in a new tab.
434 views
#43 Ways to Map Two Lists to a Dict in PythonOpens in a new tab.
44 views
3 Ways to Check If a List Is Empty in PythonOpens in a new tab.
214 views
3 Ways to Compare Strings in PythonOpens in a new tab.
457 views
3 Ways to Compare Strings in PythonOpens in a new tab.
423 views
#5The Definitive Guide to List Comprehensions in PythonOpens in a new tab.
37 views
4 Ways to Get the Last Element of a List in PythonOpens in a new tab.
143 views
4 Ways to Get the Last Element of a List in PythonOpens in a new tab.
408 views
4 Ways to Get the Last Element of a List in PythonOpens in a new tab.
316 views

I have to say, despite posting any new content, the videos are steadily gaining views. That’s nice to see!

Total Revenue

Okay, now we get into the messy stuff. Unfortunately, I don’t have a nice dashboard for this, so you’ll have to deal with some more tables. To start, let’s look at Patreon income:

Month2019202020212022
Jan$0.00$17.37$18.14$13.99
Feb$0.00$17.37$18.14 $13.99
Mar$0.00$17.37$18.14 $13.99
Apr$0.00$17.37$18.14 $13.99
May$0.00$23.75$18.14 $13.22
Jun$0.00$23.75$18.14 $9.07
Jul$8.30$23.74$18.14 $9.07
Aug$22.72$23.74$18.14 $9.07
Sep$22.72$23.75$18.14 $9.07
Oct$22.72$23.75$18.14 $9.07
Nov$22.72$18.14$9.84$9.07
Dec$22.72$18.14$9.84$9.07
Total$121.90$248.24$201.08$132.67
Income from Patreon by year

It may come as no surprise, but the Patreon income has fallen off! I still post there weekly, but I don’t have much of an incentive to pay attention to it. Maybe it’ll grow this year!

On the plus side, my Amazon income is going great. Take a look:

Month2019202020212022
Jan$0.00$1.49$4.23$20.51
Feb$0.00$0.00$14.30$11.03
Mar$0.00$12.70$8.51$9.53
Apr$0.00$11.63$8.18$4.71
May$0.00$0.90$6.09$7.50
Jun$0.00$12.78$4.12$2.82
Jul$0.00$0.98$2.66$0.37
Aug$0.00$0.94$2.20$12.21
Sep$0.00$0.62$4.37$8.97
Oct$0.20$0.38$9.84$34.35
Nov$0.00$8.59$10.84$18.70
Dec$0.00$7.24$4.39$18.47
Total$0.20$58.25$79.73$149.17
Income from Amazon by year

So, while Patreon is in a recession, Amazon is doing well for me. Now, let’s take a look at ad revenue:

Month20182019202020212022
Jan$0.00$12.84$0.00$2.72$7.91
Feb$0.34$8.93$0.00$8.34$12.37
Mar$1.68$21.71$0.00$9.23$12.61
Apr$1.68$28.18$0.00$8.76$2.48
May$1.49$30.53$0.00$6.27$4.40
Jun$1.05$17.00$0.00$10.98$9.19
Jul$1.94$10.67$0.00$7.67$5.64
Aug$0.56$9.78$0.00$7.23$6.23
Sep$5.87$4.99$0.00$14.55$8.41
Oct$9.28$0.00$0.00$18.63$12.09
Nov$12.19$0.00$0.00$18.99$10.37
Dec$15.56$0.00$0.00$10.89$9.78
Total$49.96$144.63$0.00$124.26$101.50
Income from ads by year

Ad revenue is a messy thing and does not seem to be too consistent. To be fair, I did try picking up a new ad network (Ezoic), but they were particularly annoying about my “bad traffic.” That could explain the dip in revenue in April and May. In the future, I’ll probably target a more premium ad network, but AdSense will have to work for now.

With all that said, there are other ways I’ve earned income in the past like selling PDFs through the shop and launching membership sites. I don’t think it’s important to include them anymore, but you’re free to browse my older annual reviews to see what I’m talking about. Regardless, in 2022, I made about $383, which isn’t too bad for something I do for fun. With that said, let’s move on!

Total Expenses

This article has been posted for a couple months, but I’m finally getting around to my taxes. As a result, I thought it would be helpful to also track my expenses. For the moment, I’ll track this year’s expenses, but I may swing by later and add in the last couple of years as well.

To start, I want to talk about web hosting. It is by far my biggest expense, but it isn’t too bad all things considered:

Month2022
January$0.00
February$0.00
March$61.18
April$185.42
May$0.00
June$0.00
July$0.00
August$0.00
September$0.00
October$0.00
November$0.00
December$0.00
Total$246.60
Hosting expenses by year

Alongside hosting, I also pay quite a bit for domain registration across a portfolio of websites including this one:

Month2022
January$0.00
February$0.00
March$0.00
April$48.00
May$10.00
June$0.00
July$10.00
August$0.00
September$0.00
October$0.00
November$0.00
December$0.00
Total$68.00
Domain registration expenses by year

Outside of hosting and domain registration, a solid portion of my expenses are on web services such as Plausible, WordFence, and SSL certificates:

Month2022
January$0.00
February$77.00 (Link Whisper)
March$0.00
April$25.00 (SSL)
May$96.00 (Plausible)
June$0.00
July$0.00
August$0.00
September$0.00
October$0.00
November$0.00
December$0.00
Total$198.00
Web service expenses by year

In 2022, I spent about $512 to keep everything running. Not bad for a fun little hobby. Regardless, let’s go ahead and call it a day!

A Look into 2023

At this point, it’s probably clear that I don’t plan that much. Going into 2023, I’m just looking to keep up the good work. Hopefully by this time next year, I’ll have a lot to talk about in terms of life changes. However, for now, I’m just going to keep grinding. If this massive post wasn’t enough for you, here’s my first post in 2023: There Has to Be a Better Way: Reflecting on My Automation Catchphrase. Otherwise, that’s it for the yearly review! Let’s chat next time.

Year in Review (6 Articles)—Series Navigation

Every year, I like to summarize what happened in the previous year. Usually, these articles focus on my efforts with The Renegade Coder, but there’s no way to get away from the fact that we’re all whole people: our lives are more than our work.

Jeremy Grifski

Jeremy grew up in a small town where he enjoyed playing soccer and video games, practicing taekwondo, and trading Pokémon cards. Once out of the nest, he pursued a Bachelors in Computer Engineering with a minor in Game Design. After college, he spent about two years writing software for a major engineering company. Then, he earned a master's in Computer Science and Engineering. Today, he pursues a PhD in Engineering Education in order to ultimately land a teaching gig. In his spare time, Jeremy enjoys spending time with his wife and kid, playing Overwatch 2, Lethal Company, and Baldur's Gate 3, reading manga, watching Penguins hockey, and traveling the world.

Recent Meta Posts