2023 Review - Old Memories and New Wishes

Welcome to my annual review. This year has been incredibly busy for me. I got married, started decorating our house. And in October, my dog fell ill, followed by both my wife and I falling sick consecutively. It feels like I've accomplished a lot, yet somehow it seems as though nothing particularly noteworthy stands out. Old Memories I feel like I'm aging every day. It's easier for me to forget things, and my reactions have become much slower. My listening and speaking abilities are also worse. My wife often has to repeat herself multiple times for me. It's scary. I spent a week reflecting on experiences that might still be significant to me 10 years from now, but struggled to recall any memorable moments. Here are some fragments I've gathered from my increasingly scattered memory. Please remember them again, me from 10 years in the future. OpenDAL joined ASF Incubator and it is now Apache OpenDAL™ 2023-02-27 OpenDAL joined the Apache Incubator on February 27, 2023. I'm extremely proud of this achievement. The project is now officially referred as "Apache OpenDAL™". I've long aspired to donate an open-source project to the Apache Software Foundation. Databend Labs has provided me with tremendous support. This journey has been incredibly educational, deepening my understanding of how open source operates. It's also given me a valuable chance to learn about and actively engage in community growth. I'm honored. Wedding 2023-05-15 The wedding is, of course, the biggest event of the year. I'm aware that I might be a good open-source developer, but I'm also painfully aware that I fall short as a good husband. At times, I can be stubborn and at other times too passive. I've often left the difficult decisions and communications to my wife. She has had to shoulder not only her own burdens but mine as well because of what I've neglected. For this, I am truly sorry. So, thank you to my wife for choosing to love me despite it all. I'm lucky. Best Article Ever 2023-11-29 I wrote the best article ever today: Rust std fs slower than Python!? No, it's hardware!. I'm thrilled to see my article featured on the Hacker News front page. It's garnered a lot of readers and sparked numerous comments. I'm particularly delighted that people are engaging with my writing style: I am gob-fucking-smacked. That was a wild journey, from start to finish, and I did not know where it was going at almost any point. 10/10. This is a great tale/article and investigation. Awesome work by the author! This is unreal. No other words. The drill-down through the abstraction layers until you hit bedrock proved to be a really nice framework for telling this story-but-not-really-intended-to-be-a-story-it’s-actually-a-bug-report. I'm happy. New Wishes For much of last year, I was consumed by worry. I constantly sought proof that I was aging—thinking more slowly, struggling with memory, feeling fatigued more easily, facing more illnesses than ever before, and accomplishing less. This year, my goal is to be proactive. By changing my mindset, I aim to transform my worries into actions. In the coming year, I wish: Family Last year, we faced numerous illnesses; I hope my family will be healthier this year. I plan to dedicate more time to caring for my family, exercise regularly at the gym, and ensure we get to bed earlier. Travel Last year, I talked about traveling overseas, but it never happened. This year, I want to go to Europe with my wife and see the world together. Apache OpenDAL™ I aim to graduate Apache OpenDAL™ from the incubator to become a top-level ASF project. I hope we can attract more committers and expand our user base. I hope my vision of Access Data Freely becomes a reality, where: Users have the freedom to retrieve data from any service (S3, GCS, Azblob, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.). Users can interact with data in their preferred programming language (Rust, Python, Java, Go, etc.). Users can choose their desired method for accessing data (RESTful APIs, gRPC, WebDAV, FTP, FUSE, etc..). Wishing all readers a Happy New Year!