2019 Year in Review

The beginning of every year starts out with all of us setting ambitious goals -- goals being personal and professional. Many of us rarely complete half of those goals, most abandoning them by the end of the year. In January of this year I published my list of goals for the year. Let's have a look at how did!

Goal 1: Become a Better DevTooler

Mission accomplished! During this second year on the Firefox DevTools team, I branched out to help with other DevTools. I implemented DOM Mutation Breakpoint features in the Inspector. I also implemented the resource blocking feature in the Network Monitor. In between I improved various other items outside of the Debugger. I'm incredibly proud to be a DevTooler and I enjoy every developer that tells me they've switched to Firefox for development!

Goal 2: Achieve "Staff Developer" Status

Mission Failed! I didn't achieve this status but the truth is that I don't feel I deserve it. I've been moved around at Mozilla so much these last seven years that each move finds me starting over in proving myself. The other truth is that each time I'm unhappy I dangle the idea of a promotion in front of myself to keep me going. I'm not sad about failing this goal because I recognized this false hope and have prioritized happiness over superficial titles.

Goal 3: Improve the Script & Style Show

Mission Accomplished! I was apprehensive getting into the podcast world but I'm incredibly proud of what we've published this past year. We interviewed some amazing people in the web world, started panel-based podcasts, and continued our growth as hosts along the way. We'll do our best to keep bringing the fun and I'm so thankful for Todd and TrackJS!

Goal 4: Redesign and Rebrand

Mission Failed! This will be a goal every year of my life. This blog will never look or function well enough. And when you're not a designer, like I'm not, you find each redesign as incomplete. I'll continue to brainstorm a better design but chances are I'll get discouraged.

Crumbs

• My current role at Mozilla finds me writing Kotlin for Firefox Fenix on Android phones! What the hell?! I'd have never believe this but I've really enjoyed making an impact on a medium in a language I'd never imagined. Best of luck to me.
• I've become a better father and husband. The flexibility Mozilla provides its developers is immense, and this year I've taken advantage of it to jump out early to get my kids from school, take them to their activities, etc. Thank you Mozilla.
• I'm quite proud of my DevTools debugger work this year. Event listener breakpoints, DOM Mutation breakpoints, network monitor request blocking, etc. Add to that the hundreds of other commits and I feel like I made a big impact this past year.
• One of my proudest ever achievements is leading the DevTools Debugger community team. The debugger's community is an example of good people improving themselves and Firefox. I love all of them my life wouldn't be whole without them!

How did you do on your yearly goals?! Please share!