Last weekend, I had the idea of writing an annual summary. After creating a new file and dictating a lot of content, it felt like I was pouring out my own thoughts, something that could only be written for my own eyes. So, I set it aside for a week and chose to create a new file to rewrite a version that could be published.
This year is actually an important milestone, marking the transition from being a student to a worker. The changes in identity, role, and environment have brought me a lot of thoughts and ideas. However, I don't have much time to work on a regular basis, and many ideas that pop up in my mind may not be thought through, or they might be forgotten because I didn't record them. So, I decided to take this opportunity of writing an annual record to summarize some thoughts.
Farewell to Campus
In June of this year, I finally ended my 19-year academic journey. Since I had already settled my job last year and signed a tripartite agreement, the remaining time on campus was relatively relaxed.
- January was spent at home playing;
- In February, I returned to school to work on the remaining content of my graduation project;
- In March, I simply wrote a patent for my work to meet the graduation requirements;
- April was spent sprinting to complete my graduation thesis;
- In May, I completed the defense;
- In June, I went on a graduation trip and attended the graduation ceremony with my family.
Overall, the final time on campus was smooth and successful. I graduated, obtained a degree, found a job, and felt quite satisfied 😌
Starting Work
Not long after graduation, I started my job and officially became a worker. Although I had worked for a few months during my internship last year, formal work and internships are quite different. After all, you can leave at any time during an internship, but there is no way out in formal work, especially as a valuable fresh graduate. No matter what, you have to gain a few years of experience before moving on to social recruitment.
For my first job, I chose server-side business development, which is relatively in line with my career direction. I remember on my first day of work, my senior colleague and I talked about believing that what we do is meaningful. Although this may sound like self-encouragement or even self-consolation, I felt that my work seemed to have some significance when I accidentally saw in the Xiaohongshu comment section that someone had discovered and used the features I was responsible for adding.
However, although I am a technical developer, most of my daily work is spent on communication alignment and document analysis. The core coding does not take up much time. To some extent, the ability to communicate, coordinate, and collaborate is more important than technical level, especially in business development.
Why don't developers write much code? On the one hand, most business systems have already matured, and many contents are almost built. For new requirements, existing links can often be reused, and even if there are changes, they are built and repaired on this basis. On the other hand, the company is constantly improving efficiency, and the direction and means of improving efficiency often involve transforming some code development requirements into process arrangement through abstraction, turning code writing into referable and copyable configuration, and then assigning these tasks to outsourcing. How much efficiency can be improved is hard to say, it's ultimately a number, but frontline developers don't seem to have much free time.
However, this may just be due to the team I am in and the applications I am responsible for. But as the big boss said in the first all-staff meeting, the company doesn't really have an obligation to help everyone grow, so it's up to us. If there are no opportunities, create them. If opportunities are scarce, seize them. If you don't write code, read code, read documents, and once you've read them, they become mine😆
However, after dealing with many business requirements, I also reflect on the role of technology and whether it is really that important. Sometimes it seems that business knowledge is also very important. Being able to create and attract business requirements and facilitate transactions is more important. What value can a great system bring if it can't be sold and nobody uses it? Even if it's garbage, as long as it has enough users and occupies enough market position, it can drive out good money with bad money. It seems that sales ability is the strongest!
Programming Journey
Despite this, I really love coding from the bottom of my heart, and I enjoy exploring and tinkering with all kinds of interesting things. Apart from work, this year I studied F#, Rust, and Kotlin in depth. All three languages are great, and writing in them is a pleasure, satisfying my love and pursuit of functional programming.
On the journey of learning functional programming, sometimes I really feel that I might lack insight, and my imagination for functional writing is a bit lacking. Sometimes I really don't know how to write in a functional way, or how to implement iteration with recursion. Only after seeing other people's codes and getting insights do I realize that it can be written this way.
This year, I also completed the Advent of Code challenge for the first time. Although I encountered many challenges, such as some unfamiliar theorems and formulas, or going out for team building for three days and having to catch up, I finally completed all the challenges on Christmas Day, lighting up all the patterns.
Although it seems like I've learned a lot and know a lot, I still feel anxious from time to time. I worry about whether these things I'm doing are really helpful for my work and whether they improve my abilities. If I really change jobs, can these skills help me find a better job? Probably not. This seems very utilitarian, but there seems to be no way around it. I can only stop thinking so much and enjoy myself first.
The direction of my learning (or playing) will probably continue to focus on these three languages and functional programming. As for work-related system design and middleware, I might go back to learning at work, if I still have time and haven't been overwhelmed by work.
About Money
After starting formal work, I began to have a more stable income. How to manage and use it has become an important issue. I often see discussions about financial freedom, and to be honest, I am very attracted to this goal. Moreover, I am very realistic in defining the meaning of working, which is to make money. Making money, not shameful.
What is considered financial freedom?
A couple of months ago, I passed a lottery station while jogging at night and saw that the scratch-off lottery prize was as high as 200,000. I suddenly started fantasizing about what would happen if I won. If I won 200,000, how would I spend it? It seems that this amount is not particularly large, and I really can't think of what to buy. The only thing I can think of is probably buying a car. Is 200,000 too little? What if it's 500,000? It seems there isn't much difference. What if it's 5 million? The first thought in my mind was that it might not be enough to buy a house in Shenzhen, but in fact, it's enough to pay a civil servant with an annual salary of 200,000 for 25 years.
It seems that getting a lump sum of money all at once can't satisfy me. Compared to that, I might prefer to have a steady and continuous income. How can I maintain a steady and continuous income? To be honest, the internet industry cannot guarantee such stability. I don't know how long I can stay, and I don't know how long this industry can last. Therefore, relying solely on working cannot bring freedom. Perhaps I need to find other ways to make money.
What other methods are there to make money? Actively exploring.
Building Image
Since starting my blog in 2018, I have been using the name and image of YeungYeah for 5 years, gradually expanding it to various platforms, and have initially built my own image brand. Although there may not be many people who know me, at least there is a name.
Why do I need a name? On the internet, for various reasons, establishing different connections with others is the most charming part of the web. In the internet, if you can build a personal brand image, accumulate enough reputation, and gain enough influence, it will be easier to establish connections with others. What's the use of connection? I can't say specifically, but for me, it means more opportunities and possibilities.
Therefore, this year I started to be more active in tweeting and interacting, and even started to operate my Xiaohongshu, writing some coding technology-related content. The data seems quite ordinary, but it doesn't matter, I'm just playing with it.
This year, I attended a high school classmate's wedding and caught up with my classmates. I learned that he is currently doing programming self-media on Xiaohongshu and other social platforms, doing programming tutoring and knowledge payment, which seems to be a good way to make money. So, I questioned self-media, learned about self-media, and became self-media. This is also part of the reason why I started playing with Xiaohongshu. Of course, this doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to become a self-media and start monetizing traffic to make money. I have a clear understanding of myself, and I probably can't do it.
I hope that one day I can go from nobody to somebody.
Facing AI
Around this time last year, ChatGPT was opened for external use. I immediately registered an account and started using it, but the user experience was quite ordinary, so I played with it for a while and then put it aside. Then a few months later in March, it suddenly evolved into a groundbreaking technology that everyone was exclaiming about.
In fact, AI technology has been developing for several years. Since the emergence of CNN neural networks, we have entered the era of AI. The AI technology in the scientific research circle is booming, and various AI+ articles have appeared. AI itself is also developing rapidly. Everyone knows about AI, and every company likes to mark their products with power by XXAI technology. But they just use AI technology on existing products.
Then, with the appearance of ChatGPT, it completely broke out of the circle, to the point where even my dad asked me if there was a way to use it. ChatGPT is indeed a good thing, and it has now almost become an indispensable tool for many people. I also used the ChatGPT API to create one (thanks to ChatGPT-Next-Web).
The emergence of ChatGPT has brought many opportunities and traffic to many people. Although some people may still not accept or even resist the development of AI for various reasons and concepts, I think this is an inevitable trend. The future AI is likely to become a ubiquitous basic resource like water and electricity, integrated into people's daily lives (this sounds a lot like the old cloud computing slogan).
This year, as the first year after reopening, and also the first year of my transition into society as a worker, everything is in its early stages for me, and everything has new hope. The possibilities are right in front of me. I need to seize the opportunity. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't matter. I'll do my best and go with the flow.