Year in Review – The Renegade Coder

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 share 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. 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: January 2022: How to Convert Markdown to a PDF: 3 Quick Solutions Most of the resources I made were for actual students, and this really kicked it off. Also, it doesn't help that I'm somewhat obsessed with markdown it seems. February 2022: How to Code Wordle Into a Discord Bot Wordle seems like a blip in history at this point, but there was a moment when I made it for one of my personal Discord bots. Looking back, that's a pretty cool feature. March 2022: I Won the Graduate Associate Teaching Award! Almost a year ago now, I won my graduate associate teaching award. It's not like I don't feel like I deserve it, but I find the recognition a little strange. Anyone, it'll definitely help me secure a job in the future, so that's exciting! April 2022: Meet Pymon: A Discord Bot That Can Answer Any Question You Want If 2022 was characterized by anything other than markdown, it was Discord. I spent a lot of time working on Discord projects against my better judgement. But I think this one really worked out. May 2022: The Complete Guide to SnakeMD: A Python Library for Generating Markdown Surprise, surprise! Markdown made the list again. This time in a fully built out markdown library in Python. The wildest part is that 30 people are using it! June 2022: Looking Forward to Life as an Educator: Course Preferences Okay I lied! Clearly, my themes in 2022 were teaching, markdown, and Discord. I wrote this article while brainstorming courses that I'd love to teach. July 2022: The Renegade’s Guide to PC Building: Unveiling Version 2.0 Now, this article is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. Whenever I have some cash, I like to upgrade my PC. Having changed so many of the original parts, I figured I'd write about it. August 2022: 5 Ways to Write Hello World in Python Well, I suppose I couldn't help myself in blending together some of my favorite topics: obfuscation and python. If you like cursed code, this one is for you. September 2022: I Finally Figured Out Python’s Module and Package System It wouldn't be The Renegade Coder if I wasn't shilling Python. That said, this article is a bit of a criticism of Python given how hard it is to actually put together a working module. October 2022: The Official Recursion Cheat Sheet It doesn't show in this list, but I also wrote a lot about recursion in this list. It seems I keep finding ways to explain recursion to new folks. November 2022: 5 Ways to Share Code in Discord Now, this is an article that bridges a few of my 2022 themes: teaching and Discord. In fact, I actually think this article mentions markdown as well. That's one way to ring in the new year! December 2022: I Am a PhD Candidate! Oh, did I mention that I passed my candidacy exam? Yeah, I'm on my way to finally finishing my degree. I'm so excited. 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: SnakeMD: 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. Pymon: 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 Dashboard: 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 Dashboard: 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 Game: 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 dashboard. 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: Month20182019202020212022Jan42719.1k21.1k11.8k13.7kFeb39716.2k24.8k11.6k14kMar1.1k31.0k21.9k13.9k14.4kApr1.3k45.4k18.8k13.9k13.4kMay1.4k52.7k17k11.5k14.1kJun78026.7k13.5k11.7k13.8kJul1.7k19.8k13.9k10.3k14.6kAug1.9k19.9k16k12.1k14.7kSep5.7k22.5k15.4k11.9k18.1kOct10.9k17.8k17.3k13.7k21kNov9.9k15.0k15.4k13.6k22.9kDec13.9k11.8k12.2k12.7k22.7kTotal49.6k298k208k149k198k 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 Python27.2k viewsHow to Check if a File Exists in Python148k viewsHow 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 views#2How to Sum Elements of Two Lists in Python5.4k viewsHow to Check if a List is Empty in Python65.6k viewsPython Code Snippets for Everyday Problems14.4k views How to Performance Test Python Code11.9k viewsHow to Performance Test Python Code17.6k views#3How to Convert Two Lists into a Dictionary in Python 2.7k viewsHow to Sum Elements of Two Lists in Python 14k viewsHow to Invert a Dictionary in Python 9.3k viewsPython Code Snippets for Everyday Problems11.4k viewsHow to Increment a Number in Python16.9k views#4How to Invert a Dictionary in Python 1.9k viewsHow to Invert a Dictionary in Python13.3k viewsHow to Performance Test Python Code 8.6k viewsHello World in Brainfuck10.6k viewsHow to Open a File in Python9.7k views#5Archives1.5k viewsHow to Convert Two Lists Into a Dictionary in Python10.1k viewsHow to Print on the Same Line in Python8.2k viewsHow to Open a File in Python4.9k viewsPython Code Snippets for Everyday Problems7.2k 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#1Google39k viewsGoogle259K viewsGoogle92.9k viewsGoogle74.8k viewsGoogle136k views#2GitHub809 viewsDuckDuckGo4.8k viewsBing22.3k views Bing24.9k views Bing23k views#3Bing451 viewsBing4.8k viewsDuckDuckGo19.2k views DuckDuckGo20.6k views Direct17.5k views#4Google+266 viewsWordPress Android App1.3k viewsYahoo3.9k views Ecosia3.8k viewsDuckDuckGo11.1k views #5WordPress Reader247 viewsGitHub967 viewsEcosia3.1k views Yahoo3.5k viewsYahoo2.7k views#6Twitter246 viewsYahoo Search777 viewsDev2.2k viewsDev869 viewsYandex2k views#7DuckDuckGo215 viewsEcosia522 viewsGitHub1.3k viewsGitHub682 viewsEcosia1.9k views#8Facebook193 viewsTwitter289 viewsTopDev810 viewsYandex557 viewsGitHub449 views#9Instagram86 viewsQwant160 viewsEdabit550 viewsQwant471 viewsQwant370 views#10Yahoo85 viewsYandex144 viewsQwant500 viewsEdabit216 viewsStartPage196 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 America20,949 viewsUnited States of America115,649 viewsUnited States of America57.6k views United States of America44.3k viewsUnited States of America61.3k views#2India6,230 viewsIndia33,496 viewsIndia20.9k views India17.4k viewsIndia23.4k views#3United Kingdom2,581 viewsUnited Kingdom14,206 viewsGermany14.2k views United Kingdom8.4k viewsUnited Kingdom10.2k views#4Canada1,716 viewsGermany13,664 viewsUnited Kingdom10.5k views Germany8.2k viewsGermany9.8k views#5Germany1,517 viewsCanada11,003 viewsCanada7.7k views Canada5.7k viewsCanada8k views#6France1,066 viewsFrance8,636 viewsFrance5.3k views France4.4k viewsFrance5.5k views#7Australia807 viewsBrazil6,097 viewsAustralia3.8k viewsRussia3.8k viewsRussia5.4k views#8Israel718 viewsAustralia5,445 viewsNetherlands3.6k viewsNetherlands2.9k viewsBrazil4.1k views#9Brazil685 viewsNetherlands4,847 viewsBrazil3.3k viewsAustralia2.9k viewsAustralia3.9k views#10Netherlands611 viewsSpain4,237 viewsRussia2.7k viewsBrazil2.5k viewsNetherlands3.6k 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 Python232 views3 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 views#24 Ways to Reverse a Dictionary in Python146 views4 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 views#33 Ways to Element-Wise Sum Two Lists in Python142 views3 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 views#43 Ways to Map Two Lists to a Dict in Python44 views3 Ways to Check If a List Is Empty in Python214 views3 Ways to Compare Strings in Python457 views3 Ways to Compare Strings in Python423 views#5The Definitive Guide to List Comprehensions in Python37 views4 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 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: Month2019202020212022Jan$0.00$17.37$18.14$13.99Feb$0.00$17.37$18.14 $13.99Mar$0.00$17.37$18.14 $13.99Apr$0.00$17.37$18.14 $13.99May$0.00$23.75$18.14 $13.22Jun$0.00$23.75$18.14 $9.07Jul$8.30$23.74$18.14 $9.07Aug$22.72$23.74$18.14 $9.07Sep$22.72$23.75$18.14 $9.07Oct$22.72$23.75$18.14 $9.07Nov$22.72$18.14$9.84$9.07Dec$22.72$18.14$9.84$9.07Total$121.90$248.24$201.08$132.67Income 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: Month2019202020212022Jan$0.00$1.49$4.23$20.51Feb$0.00$0.00$14.30$11.03Mar$0.00$12.70$8.51$9.53Apr$0.00$11.63$8.18$4.71May$0.00$0.90$6.09$7.50Jun$0.00$12.78$4.12$2.82Jul$0.00$0.98$2.66$0.37Aug$0.00$0.94$2.20$12.21Sep$0.00$0.62$4.37$8.97Oct$0.20$0.38$9.84$34.35Nov$0.00$8.59$10.84$18.70Dec$0.00$7.24$4.39$18.47Total$0.20$58.25$79.73$149.17Income 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: Month20182019202020212022Jan$0.00$12.84$0.00$2.72$7.91Feb$0.34$8.93$0.00$8.34$12.37Mar$1.68$21.71$0.00$9.23$12.61Apr$1.68$28.18$0.00$8.76$2.48May$1.49$30.53$0.00$6.27$4.40Jun$1.05$17.00$0.00$10.98$9.19Jul$1.94$10.67$0.00$7.67$5.64Aug$0.56$9.78$0.00$7.23$6.23Sep$5.87$4.99$0.00$14.55$8.41Oct$9.28$0.00$0.00$18.63$12.09Nov$12.19$0.00$0.00$18.99$10.37Dec$15.56$0.00$0.00$10.89$9.78Total$49.96$144.63$0.00$124.26$101.50Income 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: Month2022January$0.00February$0.00March$61.18April$185.42May$0.00June$0.00July$0.00August$0.00September$0.00October$0.00November$0.00December$0.00Total$246.60Hosting expenses by year Alongside hosting, I also pay quite a bit for domain registration across a portfolio of websites including this one: Month2022January$0.00February$0.00March$0.00April$48.00May$10.00June$0.00July$10.00August$0.00September$0.00October$0.00November$0.00December$0.00Total$68.00Domain 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: Month2022January$0.00February$77.00 (Link Whisper)March$0.00April$25.00 (SSL)May$96.00 (Plausible)June$0.00July$0.00August$0.00September$0.00October$0.00November$0.00December$0.00Total$198.00Web 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.