2023 – yet another annual review [Editorial]
Leaving dormakaba AG
The first two months of the year I spent with preparing my leaving of dormakaba AG at the end of February. As I made several templates and tools to use those templates for the interfaces we wrote, I needed to document a lot for my remaining colleagues there. Other than that, I was still investing time into my #CASBAN6 project sporadically.
New role at Galliker Transport AG
In March, I started a new job at Galliker Transport AG as a Mobile Application Developer ((almost) fully remote). Immediately after starting, I was confronted with the transition from Xamarin.Forms to .NET MAUI. In the meantime, I built and maintain the core NuGet packages for our MAUI applications and have three applications that I am responsible for. So far, I enjoyed the ride and I hope this will continue to be interesting.
.NET on macOS
That was and is kind of a mixed back in 2023. Since ever, Microsoft didn’t give VS4Mac the love it deserved. After all, they decided to kill it altogether next year. Luckily, I was already in the midst of the transition to JetBrains Rider as my primary IDE, so it does not hurt that much. In fact, I am running a VS4Mac less setup right now already. Visual Studio Code is Microsoft’s recommendation as a follow-up, but Rider is by far more powerful and convenient to use.
Prepare your Mac to be a Xamarin/.NET MAUI build host without VS4MAC [Updated]
Streamlining my side projects
In September, after my summer holiday, I had to take some time and resource managing steps to streamline my side projects. Long story short, I am focusing on the Apple ecosystem besides Web/Cloud, Android isn’t worth the effort for me at the moment (this may change for future projects).
PSA: My side projects, time, and platforms
Learning Swift
As I am focusing on the Apple ecosystem for my side projects, I identified some areas where I cannot use .NET (Apple Watch for example). As I have two or three ideas for future side projects, I started to learn the Swift programming language during my summer holidays. Even though I didn’t proceed much in that area in the last two months, I will continue to explore this world further throughout the next year. I am pretty sure I will also start to blog in that area at some point.
My first ever tech book review
This year, I got asked by BPB Publications to review a C# book (Building End-To-End Apps with C# 11 and .NET 7), which I did. It was quite an interesting experience for me. Just in time for this blog post, my physical copy of the book arrived. I still have to write the blog post about the process itself, which will probably be my next post.
#### Sports
Besides programming, I enjoy running a lot. My running season went quite well this year. I ran my first half-marathon – sadly, I missed my two-hour target time by about 5 minutes (see on Strava). I made 6 out of 12 run in the ZKB Zürilauf Cup and closed the season with the Kyburglauf run, which involves climbing 450 stairs towards the end of the 10,25 km race.
Not only that, but I had ambitious plans for next year (including 3 or 4 half-marathons), until I got slowed down by catching an inguinal hernia two weeks ago, which needs a surgery first before I can go back to sports.
Other stuff
Besides programming and sport, I re-entered the Music space and started to curate Trance playlists that I share publicly. The latest one is my TOP 100 Trance of 2023, which you can find here on Apple Music or on Spotify.
I also started to play around with some DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software to create my own music, but I have no favorite so far. If there will be anything more in this area, I will post it here and on my socials.
Memorial
Our cat Amadeus, who was with us for the last 20+ years and helped us to grow our kids, passed away this year as he lost the battle against cancer.
Dear Amadeus, rest in peace, and may god bless your little soul so we can cuddle you again once our time has come. We will always miss you!
Conclusion
Time flew by this year, and a lot of stuff happened. What was your year like? Was it as fast for you as it was for me? Sound of in the comments or on my socials!
As every year, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!