Happy new year!

January 7, 2024

My overarching goal for 2024 is implementing a small, simple programming language, that compiles to WASM. This post is a reflection on how I got here and how I plan to do it.

For the past 10 years, I have been trying to get into the habit of writing about programming and technology. During that time, the biggest hurdle I faced when sitting in front of a blank editor, was to find an interesting and worthwhile topic.

Everything that came to my mind seemed to have been discussed to death somewhere on the internet, including how to find things to write about and why people should blog. That is to be expected, since the main source of information for me is the internet. Which means, I would probably not know about a topic, if someone hadn’t already written about it before. Which is why I never felt, like another opinion would move the needle too much.¹

There are many other reasons, though almost all of them boil down to cop outs and non-reasons. Embarrassingly the “my editor environment is not right” reason is on that list, which is just irrational.

What has changed?

At the end of 2023 I had several realizations. Most of them were consequences of actually feeling, that I do enjoy writing. The moment that occurred to me, all the seemingly difficult obstacles and reasons for not writing vanished. I also noticed a shift in my mindset. Instead of seeing this as a space where I try to assume the role of a teacher, I started seeing this as a space where I assume the role of a student and just jot down my notes, hopefully in an ordered and coherent manner.

That also means, finding a topic is actually very simple: I just write about what I am interested in. When I look at my past 11 years in programming, the two topics which I have been consistently fascinated by are: compilers and games. However, my main focus in 2024 will be on programming languages and compilers.

That’s because in the past I always wanted to do everything instantly, like right now. Shifting the perspective once again and seeing a year as 52/53 weeks with slow consistent steps, instead of burning like a wildfire and sizzling out in a week is much healthier and much more sustainable.

Plan

New years resolutions don’t work well, when there is no concrete, achievable goal.

So, my overarching goal for 2024 is to work on a small, simple programming language, that compiles to WASM and that I can use to solve at least one Advent of Code problem.

To achieve that, I will write a post per week and release it at the latest at 6 p.m. (CE(S)T) on Sunday.

There might be other posts in between, about things that came up at work or something I played around with in my free time but that is and will remain my main goal for this year.

A note on a life lesson

The main life lesson I take away from all of this, is that if you start being honest with yourself, recognize what you want and you feel deeply about, it becomes almost obvious, what you have to do. Writing that, I am reminded of a conversation with a former professor of mine in which he said that the solutions to most problems become obvious, when you actually understand the problem. That has stuck with me and applied in many situations and I think it applies equally in this case.

Take care!