Like every year since my blog relaunch I am starting the year with a little retrospective and outlook.
Blog Stats
The visitor count did not change much over the year. There is a spike in September, which comes from a few more new articles.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 4 |
The top visitor sources are also similar:
| # | Source | Visitors | Visitors 2015 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10759 | 10011 (+0) | |
| 2 | direct | 6811 | 5997 (+0) |
| 3 | 1411 | 772 (+1) | |
| 4 | StackOverflow | 1120 | 985 (-1) |
| 5 | habrahabr.ru | 635 | 162 (+3) |
So let’s check out the most visited articles over the year:
| # | Title | English | German | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (+0) | Mocking built-in functions like time() in unit tests (2011) | 4163 | 733 | 4896 |
| 2 (+4) | Show random products in Magento – you are doing it wrong! (2015) | 1585 | 239 | 1824 |
| 3 | Memoize method calls in PHP with cache decorators | 1679 | – | 1679 |
| 4 | Stop using helpers | 1398 | 103 | 1501 |
| 5 (-3) | The Magento buyRequest object – A reference (2014) | 987 | 274 | 1261 |
| 6 | Using class_alias() to maintain backwards compatibility while move/rename classes | 1238 | – | 1238 |
| 7 | Collection Pipelines in PHP | 891 | – | 891 |
| 8 (-6) | Magento bundle products: Use tier prices of simple products (2014) | 447 | 332 | 779 |
| 9 (-1) | Magento tutorial: Use increment models to generate ids or SKUs (2014) | 542 | 142 | 684 |
| 10 | Design patterns for framework agnostic plugins / extensions: Dependency injection | – | 654 | 654 |
Again, half of the top ten are old articles. The post about random products in Magento could become a new evergreen based on the search engine traffic!
Hot Topics
My “Design Patterns for framework agnostic plugins/extensions” series on integer-net.com got some attention and this was part of my overall topic of the year: my work on the Internet_Solr search extension for Magento 2.
Besides on the blog, I also shared my experience from that on conferences (see my new “Talks” page) and got invited to do a lesson on NomadMage (coming Jan 17, 2017! Read more)
Blog Update
I’m a bit tired of my ugly old WordPress and would love to use a static site blog for better security and performance. I tried Hugo for the third time or so, but gave up again. Found a nice theme but converting >100 multilingual posts from WordPress did not work well. Same for Jekyll. I consider giving Grav a try as well, but for now I’m still stuck with WordPress, at least with an updated look. The new Twenty Seventeen theme is quite nice! Got myself a personal header image as well.
Besides the new look, I am currently changing the content for the site to be less “businessy” because I don’t sell my services as a freelancer anymore. You still can hire me for Magento training and consulting, but solely through the agency integer_net 
where I went from part time employee to full time employee and partner, starting Jan 1 2017
Goals reached?
Last year I did not make a list of new years resolutions, but still had a few things in mind for 2016:
- Concern myself with Magento 2 As expected, there was no way around that topic. At integer_net we released a beta version of IntegerNet_Solr for Magento 2 and started our first Magento 2 customer project in November
Working together on a Magento 2 Project with @fschmengler @avstudnitz and @fragdochkarl is pure joy. #realmagento
— Marcel Hauri (@mhauri) 10. November 2016
- Try running an own extension business I admit, this did not have high priority so I did not put enough work in it, but so far it was not profitable at all and we can scratch that.
- More sport Technically, I said “more sport until the next company running event”, so: I did it!
For me, 2016 was also a year of Magento events:
- Firegento Hackathon
- Developers Paradise, Croatia
- Mage Unconference, Germany
- Meet Magento Germany
- Mage Unconference, Netherlands
- Meet Magento Romania
- Mage Titans, UK
- Several Meetups in Aachen and Cologne
That’s nothing in comparison to the seasoned conference travelers in our community, but for me: a lot. I could not do this for weeks or months in a row, but I really enjoyed it. I plan to continue in 2017, but also pay more attention to other interesting events, not related to Magento. Make this the first items on my new years resolution list:
- Continue speaking at conferences
- Attend at least one tech conference not related to Magento
2017 – what else?
I started doing small TDD Katas regularly to practice my craft and also try out new technologies and methods. This is something I definitely want to make a habit of, just 15 minutes a day.
- Make TDD Katas part of my daily routine, blog about it
- Read more books (technical and non-technical)
Treated myself with something to read for Christmas (about time!) @ericevans0 @yegor256 pic.twitter.com/7XjpG27o9X
— Fabian Schmengler (@fschmengler) 25. Dezember 2016
- Do interesting things
May 2017 be a successful year for all my readers as well!
