The best things and stuff of 2023

Fogus

2023.12.18

Great things and people that I discovered, learned, read, met, etc. in 2023. No particular ordering is implied. Not everything is new.

also: see the lists from 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010

I’m releasing this year’s post early due to upcoming travel, so please hold off creating great works for me to discover until the new year!

Great posts | articles | talks read/watched

Most viewed blog posts by me

Favorite technical (and technical-adjacent) books discovered (and read)

Favorite non-technical books read

Number of books written or published

03

Number of programming languages designed

½ a language + ½ of another language, both being concatenative, one being imperative and the other functional. I’d like to hack on these over the holiday break. See more about these below.

Favorite music discovered

Favorite show about a disheveled detective

Columbo

Favorite films discovered

Favorite podcasts

Favorite games discovered

Favorite papers discovered (and read)

Still haven’t read…

I Ching, A Fire upon the Deep, Don Quixote, and a boat-load of sci-fi

Favorite technical conference attended

Favorite code read

Life-changing technology “discovered”

State of plans from 2023

Plans for 2024

2023 Tech Radar

People who inspired me in 2023 (in no particular order)

Yuki, Keita, Shota, Craig Andera, Carin Meier, Justin Gehtland, Rich Hickey, Nick Bentley, Paula Gearon, Zeeshan Lakhani, Brian Goetz, David Nolen, Jeb Beich, Paul Greenhill, Kristin Looney, Andy Looney, Kurt Christensen, Samm Deighan, David Chelimsky, Chas Emerick, Stacey Abrams, Paul deGrandis, Nada Amin, Michiel Borkent, Alvaro Videla, Slava Pestov, Yoko Harada, Mike Fikes, Dan De Aguiar, Christian Romney, Russ Olsen, Alex Miller, Adam Friedman, Tracie Harris, Alan Kay, Janet A. Carr, Wayne Applewhite, Naoko Higashide, Zach Tellman, Nate Prawdzik, JF Martel, Phil Ford, Nate Hayden, Sean Ross, Tim Good, Chris Redinger, Steve Jensen, Jordan Miller, Tim Ewald, Stu Halloway, Jack Rusher, Michael Berstein, Benoît Fleury, Rafael Ferreira, Robert Randolph, Joe Lane, Lisa Monaghan, Renee Lee, Pedro Matiello, Jarrod Taylor, Jaret Binford, John Cooper, Conrad Barski, Amabel Holland, Ben Kamphaus.

Onward to 2024!

:F


  1. tangentially related to my old BBS adventures, check out the archived Fazuul fan site – this was my favorite BBS game and on multi-node BBSes provided a backdoor for chatting with friends via the say command. Good times.↩︎

  2. https://bookshop.org/shop/fogus↩︎

  3. however, i did have a brainstorming session with a friend about an outline and early chapters that we did a dozen years or so ago.↩︎

  4. This is strictly my work-life time. My total use of Clojure has been longer.↩︎