Retrospective 2023
Tags: webdev, javascript, career, react
Published: 2023-12-24 22:46:05

**Tonight is the evening of December 24th, Christmas Eve, and I'm sitting in the common area of a hostel in Edinburgh, Scotland, just relaxing while watching some development videos on YouTube and drinking a nice cup of tea after a long day of sightseeing in this beautiful city. And so I thought I'd write a retrospective article covering some posts I created in 2023, what I learned and what I hope for next year. Let's go?**

## What a fantastic year!

I really want to start this article by highlighting that this was a very important year for me, not only because I learned a lot about development in general, but also because [it marks my life as a transgender person in the IT field](https://dev.to/dionarodrigues/i-am-proud-to-be-a-transgender-it-developer-okh). I'm very happy with how smooth this process is going not only at the company I work for, but also here and in other channels I use to engage with the front-end community. So **I strongly want to say “Thank You” to all of you, thank you for supporting and making space for me and other trans people. This really matters and saves lives**. Let's continue, together, to make our IT area a very diverse place for everyone.

## Studies retrospective

Just take a look at my articles to see how much I've been studying React. At the end of 2022 [this library released new documentation](https://dev.to/dionarodrigues/reacts-new-killer-documentation-focused-only-on-functional-components-jnk) that really changed the way React explains itself by focusing only on functional components and one thing I learned  from it is [how to use states better](https://dev.to/dionarodrigues/you-might-be-overusing-react-states-2m39). Most of the time we tend to create unnecessary states and at other times a simple `useRef()` could easily do the job we needed. **States should only be used when we need to trigger new renders**.

2023 was also the year of the [React Documentary](https://dev.to/dionarodrigues/reactjs-behind-the-scenes-3cin) that explained how this library was created within Facebook and here **I came across the name Sophie Alpert, a well-known developer who went through her gender transition in the IT field**, who inspired me to do this also professionally. Last but not least, [I started studying React Server Components](https://dev.to/dionarodrigues/react-server-components-overview-3meo) and decided to write an article about it.

Still plugged into React, [I migrated my personal site from Gatsby to Next.js 13](https://dev.to/dionarodrigues/migrating-my-site-from-gatsby-to-nextjs-13-the-pros-and-cons-358n) to not only do a code review, but also to use the latest versions of React. This way **I was able to learn new things, like server components, and also use things I really love, like Typescript**. Then I did some small improvements like [custom follower cursor](https://dev.to/dionarodrigues/how-to-create-a-custom-cursor-follower-with-gsap-87k) and [automating the creation of components and pages with Plop](https://dev.to/dionarodrigues/generating-react-files-with-plop-to-maintain-code-consistency-and-avoid-trivial-steps-189e).

Learning JavaScript is always a priority to make me a better software engineer. So **vanilla JS and its concepts and environment in general are things that I focus on in my day-to-day studies and I'm sure I will continue to do so next year**. In 2023 I wrote two specific articles, one related to two [JS design patterns (Observer and Pub-Sub)](https://dev.to/dionarodrigues/observer-and-pub-sub-patterns-for-reactive-behaviours-in-javascript-3f0) that I like and use in the company where I work and another about [how to handle errors when using the Fetch API](https://dev.to/dionarodrigues/fetch-api-do-you-really-know-how-to-handle-errors-2gj0). And it's no surprise that this latest article and another called ["Fetch API is new old version of AJAX"](https://dev.to/dionarodrigues/fetch-api-is-new-old-version-of-ajax-1m14) have been a big hit with developers, which is great because it shows how committed we are to improving our skills with API requests. :)

## What I hope for 2024

**As a front-end developer, JavaScript will always be at the top of my studies, no matter what framework I'm using at the moment**. I also don't see myself getting rid of React next year, so I hope to continue improving my skills in React and its entire environment for sure. **But there's one thing I've been thinking about a lot, which is being more involved with design and UX, because I think I miss the creative side of IT**. So I would like to think about how to use all my design experience along with my dev skills, which could be developing courses, YouTube videos or even consultancy. We will see. **I also want to improve my people management skills, as I would like to have opportunities to help bring diversity to companies**.

And you? What did you learn in 2023 and what do you hope for in 2024?

Thank you so much for being in this together. See you next year! 😁