To read the personal report for 2014 click here.

As usually, you can skip indented paragraphs as they contain verbose details, thoughts and so on (e.g., if you do not have a time for reading them)…

Achievements in 2015

To be honest, I feel like the past year has been wasted in general – there seemed to be no really new and completed achievements in 2015. At least, if we talk about IT… Expectedly, I have good reasons for this, but none of them is really good for me personally! So, I think, I should do my best to be (more) productive in 2016. And I have already started doing things, that can help. Anyway…

These are what I decided to list as achievements in 2015:

During 2015 much my time was spent for the Russian-Ukrainian war (I do know, why I name it so). I just could not remain indifferent (like many Ukrainians are). No, I was not conscripted (e.g., as a soldier), but I wanted to understand, what was happening, why was it happening, how long was it going to last, and so on. And, I believe, I did understand these things…

• Like a previous one, I dedicated this year largely to research of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Thus, I spent much time to research the Russian propaganda – why it works, what methods is it using, who are the key propagandists, and so on. I wrote many articles on this topic (but, unfortunately, all of them are in Russian). Also, I came to an awful conclusion, that we (Ukrainians) are living near and has been attacked by a truly fascist state. I’m not kidding and not exaggerating! Here and here are some English articles, that explain, why do I think so. Not sure, if this is really an achievement, but the time has been spent…
• In 2015 we also finally almost finished a very long and anticipated project, which, however, has nothing to do with IT… This project is our (my family’s) new apartment in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. We were building and preparing it for last 5 years or so (there were issues). In 2015 I was much involved in this project as it got closer to the finish. Thus, we (me and my wife) worked on interior design, plans, and so on. Recently, we have moved to this new apartment, what makes me happy as, for example, I have a fantastic office room here (I hope this will help me be more productive).
• Also, in 2015, like in previous years, I was much involved in development of the API framework of the new version of the Kayako product. This framework has become the core layer of the product. Thus, it is used as an intermediate between the back-end and the front-end. For me this indicates a great confidence in my work… Besides, I was working on the public documentation of the API (it’s not yet publicly available, unfortunately).

And, finally, some old achievements get back:

• This year guys from Packt Publishing, the company that published my book “Mastering Redmine” in 2013, asked my to update it. So, its second edition is on the way (I have already started working on it). As far as I can judge, the new edition is going to be much better. Certainly, it’s more an achievement of 2016, but the fact, that the update of the book was requested, indicates, that the book was not bad…

Failures in 2015

From the IT point of view 2015 was not a remarkable year for me. As I said, nothing really new was done… So, generally, this year was a failure:

• Thus, all my Redmine plugins got very outdated and (at least, most of them) do not run on recent versions of Redmine. While I already started updating them, it’s still a lot of work to do. Not sure, when I will get it done. Sorry.
• It’s already several years, when the WordPress+Redmine integration is ready and functioning (I use it on this website, e.g., check the Blog tab here). I need to complete just a little of things to: a) be able to submit the WordPress theme and the plugin to WordPress.org and b) make the corresponding Redmine plugin work under recent Redmine. But, I failed to do this during this year… again.
• Every year I also share my plans to revive my Jabber bot named Orangutan. But, 2015 is another year, when I have to conclude, that I failed to do this… Luckily, I started fixing it this year (it’s not an excuse, but a small notice).
• And, finally, for already many years I have an idea of #MyNotStartupProject (it’s just a code name). Each year I plan to start implementing it… in my free time, but each year I cannot find this free time… 2015 is not an exception – I failed to start it again.