I like looking back at large time periods and the major events that happened during them. It’s useful to reflect back on what the most important happenings were, and to learn from any missed opportunities or mistakes. Let’s do that now for 2024.
Finances
👉 2024 Finances in Review covers my 2024 finances and goals for 2025.
My earnings in 2024 were similar to 2023 in Review > Living Wage in Open Source. I took in a total income of roughly $60k for 2024, compared to $63k for 2023.
$60k for the year isn’t the end of the world -I have a spouse supporting me and other income- but it’s not long-term sustainable. I’m going to need to grow that in 2025 if I want to keep working as a full-time independent open source maintainer.
Goals
I’d mentioned yearly goals in My Plans for 2024 last year. Many of those goals had concrete objectives. Did I satisfy those objectives?
| Status | Count | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 37 | - |
| ✅ Hit | 15 | ~41% |
| ⏳ Partial | 14 | ~38% |
| ❌ Miss | 8 | ~22% |
…some of them! Barely more hits than partials.
Let’s compare with 2023’s year-long goals:
| Year | Count | Miss / % | Partial / % | Hit/ % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 37 | 8 / ~22% | 14 / ~38% | 14 / ~41% |
| 2023 | 34 | 7 / ~21% | 10 / ~29% | 17 / ~50% |
More partials and fewer hits in 2024 compared to 2023. If my 2023 was a C+, I’d give 2024 a C.
2024 was a year of “starts” rather than “finishes”. I took on a lot of tasks and pushed many of them only some or most of the way to completion.
The learning here is that I committed to too many things in 2024. I was excited to have more time outside of conferences and spread myself too thin. For 2025, I’m going to need to commit to fewer things - and get better at pushing mostly-done projects to completion.
Let’s take a look the areas of goals.
Open Source
The biggest and most important area of goals for me is my open source work. My primary occupation is doing this full-time, and my area of focus is tooling for web developers. The following projects are the ones I saw as providing the most positive impact for the ecosystem.
typescript-eslint
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Committer Team Expansion | ✅ ≥2 new active committer team members added |
Stable 8.0.0 | ✅ Released |
| Release the new project service | ✅ Released |
| Establish performance improvements for v8 | ⏳ Anecdotally better, not in all tested scenarios |
| Documentation overhaul | ⏳ Done for all except Promises and examples |
typescript-eslint is the project I’m most closely associated with. I spend more time on it than any other project and receive more income from it than any other two sources combined. I’m overall fairly happy, though not overjoyed, with how typescript-eslint grew in 2024.
The biggest point that I am overjoyed about is adding multiple new active committer team members. @auvred, @kirkwaiblinger, and @ronami have each contributed waves of issues and pull requests to typescript-eslint, both as authors and reviewers. Plus I’ve enjoyed working with each of them. Auvred, Kirk, and Ronen: thanks for being awesome and joining the team! 🙌
I’m also very pleased that we released both a stable 8.0.0 with ESLint v9 support and stabilized project service. Both of those tasks took longer than I’d hoped but were important for users. Announcing typescript-eslint v8 explains them in detail.
My biggest misses for typescript-eslint in 2024 were mostly around documenting the project service. The project service is fast in practice but trying to measure that in isolated exposed some bugs in typescript-eslint and TypeScript. docs: blog post on parserOptions.projectService is still in draft because I wanted to publish only after we’d made the numbers more impressive. Now it’s been in draft for over a year, and a lot of other documentation work such as Promises is still waiting for that performance work to conclude.
In retrospect, I wish I’d put more emphasis on how the project service makes configuring typed linting better, and posted the blog post with the current performance numbers. That’ll now be a 2025 goal.
Overall thoughts for typescript-eslint: it was a good year, and we’re well-positioned for 2025. I didn’t get everything I wanted done but the most important points were successful. ✔️
ESLint
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Feel comfortable as a new team member | ✅ I feel like I understand the systems in play |
| Remain active as a team member | ⏳ Not consistently active |
| Send high quality contributions | ⏳ Not consistently high quality |
I think I generally got the hang of working as a member of the ESLint team in 2024.
2024 saw merges of a few larger PRs of mine -in particular eslint#17656 feat: add meta.defaultOptions and eslint#19201 feat: add --report-unused-inline-configs- as well as a collection of smaller issues and PRs.
But, I didn’t get to spending more than 1-2 hours per week on the project until late in the year. I’d hoped to ramp up more quickly. Then the rest of the year got in my way. I also think many of my larger PRs went through several rounds of PR feedback each that I could have avoided by better understanding ESLint itself.
Still, it’s nice to be on such an important, influential a project — and especially without being on the technical steering committee. I can contribute code and make proposals without the stress of helming the JavaScript linter. I hope to continue to do more code work -and more quality work- for the ESLint project in 2025.
create-typescript-app
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Simplify the template to have 20% fewer root-level files | ✅ From 24 to 19 |
| Make migrating a customized single-project or monorepo repository a pleasant experience | ✅ As good as it can be pending create |
| Close out all the features I’d suggested through 2022 and 2023 | ⏳ Most, but not all, are resolved |
Spin out a general-purpose create package without losing features or usability | ⏳ Mostly completed by the second week of January |
| Monorepo support | ❌ Not started |
I’m happy with how create-typescript-app progressed in 2024.
It’s been reliably excellent for quickly spinning up new repositories with all the tooling I want in them.
And the create (create.bingo) project is in full swing.
I didn’t get to implementing all of the long-standing template feature requests, but I did put in quite a lot of work to continuously improve the template. The biggest feature point I’m happy about is reducing the number of root-level files to below 20. Web repositories have a ton of configuration files these days, which contributes to tooling fatigue. The fewer tools the better.
As for the standalone create project, I am ecstatic with how it’s shaping up.
You can see the evolution of its design in create-typescript-app#1181 📝 Documentation: Long-term project vision and create#76 🚀 Feature: Switch to a pluggable templating engine system.
I think the Blocks engine is a wonderfully clean approach to large repository templates like create-typescript-app.
And once create is streamlined to have a pluggable templating system, I think it’s going to be best-in-class.
The only full miss for create-typescript-app was monorepo support.
I don’t plan on working on that until the create engine is launch-ready, in part because I want to get more experience working in a monorepo like create’s.
Expect a lot more from create and create-typescript-app in 2025.
🚀
Standalone GitHub Linter
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Make a stable lint experience for GitHub repositories | ❌ Not started |
I ran out of time and did not work on a standalone GitHub linter at all. Ah well. This will be a 2025 goal.
TypeStat (ts-lift)
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
Rebrand, re-document, and stabilize TypeStat as a ts-lift monorepo | ❌ Prototyped, but not ready |
Create a ts-initialize project within ts-lift | ❌ Not started |
Create a ts-enhance project within ts-lift | ❌ Not started |
I ran out of time and did not work on the TypeStat re-architecture. create-typescript-app also monorepo didn’t land in 2024. Ah well. This will be a 2025 goal.
Personal Projects
All work and no play makes Josh a bored open source maintainer. I intentionally want to keep some more “fun” and/or smaller scale projects in the list. Even if they don’t have ecosystem-wide impact, it’s still good for me to work on a variety of project sizes and areas. Depth in addition to breadth!
emoji-blast (Emojisplosion)
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
Rebrand and re-document Emojisplosion and its plugins as an emoji-blast monorepo | ✅ Released |
I did it! The old “emojisplosion” project is now called “emoji-blast” and documented on emojiblast.dev. Which I have to brag about a moment. This homepage is glorious:
eslint-plugin-expect-type
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Achieve parity with DefinitelyTyped-tools | ✅ Done |
I have to admit, I didn’t think about this project for most of the year. DefinitelyTyped’s existing type assertions work fine, and most of my energy working on TypeScript plumbing was expended on typescript-eslint’s project service.
I did focus on this project in late November and resolve all the issues in its milestone/1 Feature Parity: dtslint. So technically the “parity” note is a hit.
But I haven’t followed up with DefinitelyTyped to get started using eslint-plugin-expect-type. That will be a 2025 goal.
Other Packages
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Objective: Maintain open source repositories in my areas of interest. | ✅ Done |
I did the things. github.com/JoshuaKGoldberg#what-im-working-on has tables of the projects I work on.
Community Engagement
I switched from a participant-and-occasional-helper for community events to an active leader in 2024. I (co-)organized two event series that launched this past year:
- Boston TS Club: a monthly meetup for TypeScript developers in the Boston area
- SquiggleConf: “a conference for excellent web dev tooling” held yearly in Boston
Both events were born in large part because we on the organizing teams wanted that type of event to regularly occur, and it that wasn’t yet. I’m deeply proud of both and thrilled with how far they’ve come in less than a year.
I also include general education work as part of community engagement, including blogging and speaking at conferences. Like it or not, I’m someone people look to for linting and TypeScript advice. Many of the ecosystem changes I push for require solid resources in both spoken -e.g. conference talks- and written -i.e. blog posts and documentation- form.
Let’s see how I did with my 2024 community engagement goals…
Boston TS Club
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Establish a smoothly-running monthly meetup | ✅ It’s happening, once a month |
| Set up a solid organizing team | ✅ YES |
💯. 🔥. Absolute success.
Boston TS Club has had 9 regular monthly events since we launched it in April, only skipping December for the holiday break. The organizing team is a solid crew and we’ve made great progress in formalizing our processes.
Meetup attendance has fluctuated -as is the norm for local meetups- but we on the team have been noting a solid crew of regulars who we enjoy having there. The overall number of attendees is trending upwards:
| Event | Date | Attendees |
|---|---|---|
| VI: New Year, New Type | January 16, 2025 | 32 |
| VIII: Thankful for Type Safety | November 19, 2024 | 29 |
| VII: The Spooky Scary Edition | October 23, 2024 | 27 |
| VI: Rise of the Squiggles | September 26, 2024 | 20 |
| V: The Compiler Strikes Back | August 29, 2024 | 25 |
| IV: A New Type | July 25, 2024 | 23 |
| III: This Time It’s Personal | June 27, 2024 | 25 |
| II: Electric Boogaloo | May 23, 2024 | 9 |
| The First One Ever! | April 18, 2024 | 30 |
Our selection of speakers has also been more diverse than the norm. The average number of not-male speakers per Boston TS Club event is 1. We’ve had people from a variety of personal backgrounds, cultures, and speaking experience give talks. Any good community needs to be diverse, equitable, and inclusive — so I’m happy we’re not perpetuating existing industry biases.
The current team finishing 2024 -Hadley, Jérémie, Sahana, Sean, Xavier- is fantastic. I’m so excited to keep working on the club in 2025 with everyone.
I will say, though, that running a meetup is hard and takes a lot of continuous effort. I’ve let a lot of things slip, and so the experience for attendees and speakers isn’t as consistent as I’d want it to be. For 2025 I’m going to want to make sure as much is process-driven as possible — rather than relying on me to drive initiatives.
SquiggleConf 2024
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Successfully run without any major problems | ✅ It went great! |
| Set up a solid organizing team | ✅ YES |
💯. 🔥. Absolute success.
We were a definitive success our first year:
- Approximately 125 attendees including staff and volunteers
- A universally well-received talk lineup and out-of-conference events
- No major calamities during the conference
- A fantastic group of people joined on as staff members for 2025
The conference was awesome. I had so many great chats with attendees, speakers, and volunteers. The speakers were fantastic: we received lots of great feedback on the talks, and many of the speakers went out of their way to engage with the audience throughout the event. I thoroughly enjoyed the out-of-conference events such as the volunteering event, after-conference hangout,
Our selection of speakers, as with Boston TS Club, was more diverse than the industry’s average. Roughly 36% of the talk speakers were not men. I would have preferred closer to 50%, but given how many conferences I’ve turned down per my speaker rider’s request to not have a supermajority of white dudes, I am not upset by this amount our first year.
On the other hand, co-organizing SquiggleConf 2024 took a heck of a lot out of me. I spent a ton of time through the year, especially in September, working on it. Then I was burned out and relatively unproductive for much of October and part of November. So while this was a big accomplishment I take pride in, I very much need to delegate more to the new team this coming year.
We did it, Dimitri!
Conferences
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Give all excellent conference talks | ⏳ Mostly, I personally think? |
| Give a conference talk once a month | ⏳ 7 talks across 5 months |
“excellent” seems grandiose to self-describe with. I think my conference talks are objectively pretty good. I think they have clear narratives and code examples that explain useful topics around TypeScript. But I’m not great at soliciting feedback. If you have feedback for how I can improve, please let me know! 😊
As for cadence, I ended up speaking at far fewer conferences in 2024 than 2023 or 2022. Which is good: I don’t get very much out of remote conferences, and all the travel for in-person ones was taking its toll. The goal of giving one conference talk a month was too high. A better goal would have been 6 talks over the year.
Blogging
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Publish at least one blog post every two weeks | ⏳ 16 posts out of 24 |
| Publish at least one post in my personal blog every two months | ✅ 12 out of 6 |
| Publish at least one post in the Learning TypeScript blog every two months | ❌ 2 out of 6 |
| Publish at least one post in the typescript-eslint blog every two months | ❌ 3 out of 6 |
I did kind of ok here. I got through a lot of blog posts on my personal blog, but missed out on over half the posts I’d meant to write for Learning TypeScript and typescript-eslint.
As with conference talks, I think I set too high a goal for 2024. 6 posts across three blogs is a lot when you consider that two of those blogs have much higher quality requirements than my personal blog. But I do wish I’d gotten at least a couple more for Learning TypeScript and typescript-eslint. I think for 2025 I’ll set 4 as their goal rather than 6.
Personal
Health
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Eat healthy, balanced meals most days of the week | ⏳ Mostly, some months |
| Reliably work out about three times a week | ⏳ Mostly, some months |
I did kind of ok here. I was much better in the first half of the year, before SquiggleConf crunchtime burned me out. But most of the fall -in particular October and November- was marred by off-kilter sleep cycles, poor diet, and not very much exercise.
I mostly recovered in December and now am back to eating balanced meals and working out three times a week. I’m more confident in those and better at controlling myself with diet and exercise.
Progress, not perfection.
Personal Accountability
| Objective | Status |
|---|---|
| Have confidence in the amount of work I’ve accomplished | ✅ Yes |
| Feel good about the amount of work I’ve accomplished | ⏳ Somewhat |
| Keep a permanent record of my todo list and day-to-day tasks | ⏳ The first ~2/3 of the year |
| End each week at inbox zero and with no desk clutter | ⏳ The first ~2/3 of the year |
| Give myself an informed performance review every three months | ❌ Not even once |
The human mind is bizarre. I do feel confident that the amount of work I accomplished in 2024 was good. But I don’t feel good about the amount. I feel like I missed the mark, and it gives me personal irritation to not have lived up to my personal expectations. I’m working on the negativity in therapy.
The tracking aspects of accountability fell through at various stages in the year. SquiggleConf burnout killed my desire to keep a tracker of my action items — though, to be fair, I think it being useful was itself a symptom of my taking on too many tasks.
I didn’t give myself any performance reviews. I almost started one, then realized: I hated the idea. The only way I’d have the motivation and spare energy to do it would be if I was decidedly on top of all my goals. So there wasn’t much of a point.
Closing Thoughts
2024 was a ton of fun but was very tiring. The accomplishments through the year -in particular typescript-eslint releases, create-typescript-app splitting out create, Boston TS Club, and SquiggleConf- give me energy and hope for 2025. The burnout towards the end of 2024 and missing some of the big goals give me anxiety and disappointment. I feel overall positive that my personal growth through the year, along with taking it easier in 2025, will make this year a good launch-point and learning experience in retrospect.
When I was at Microsoft, I occasionally heard a saying that jobs moved in cycles of three years. The first year you were learning the ropes, the second year you were getting stable, and the third you you finally knew what you’re doing. That’s how I feel about being an open source maintainer for three years: I kind of know what I’m doing now. It’s a pleasant surprise.
Expect a blog post soon on my 2025 goals. I’m hoping to tackle fewer things in 2025 — but still make a positive impact on the web development ecosystem.
Thanks again to all the awesome people who helped make my 2024 wonderful. I appreciate you all! ❤️🔥
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