Today was my last workday of this strange year numbered 2020.

It is a good moment to think about the passing year and to briefly review it. The coronavirus was the main theme of the year, so no surprise my most viewed blog post was Quickly load Covid-19 data with hana_ml and see with DBeaver…

Work

In 2019 I published A Week in the Life of SAP Developer Relations. How different it sounds compared to experiences of 2020!

The best summary would be these badges from events visited during the last two years.

Meeting developers from our ecosystem and from outside of it has always been a big and important part of a Developer Advocate job. It was a part a enjoyed a lot because I learn from a community big time too! So, it was unusual to delay trips at first, and then to cancel them starting from March.

Then we had to quickly switch to doing it all online. Frankly speaking, after almost 15 years presenting publicly on different events it was really surprising that streaming and recording is a completely different game. From running the very first virtual local meetup and presenting at SAP Online Track to guest appearances at live streams of Maximilian Streifeneder and DJ Adams to SAP Dev News to SAP TechEd activities like Devtoberfest and online lectures — it was quite a ride this year.

How I feel when the microphone is on…

… err… But I am learning this new skill and am improving.

I collected most of my videos in this playlist 📺 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSXNnd21oW416dQIZu5-XGx9K0806AUKN.

Development

Another thing to look at in retrospect is My Learning Bucket List for 2020. There were some adjustments to the plan, but overall I am happy with the results.

First thing first: indeed it was a big year for Data Engineering that was gaining solid ground on the market in general and in the SAP ecosystem in particular. We released the new SAP Data Intelligence 3.0 trial this year, and I was honored to get SAP-internal Data Intelligence black belt recognition. And I read as an external recognition a sentence like “Anything of Witalij Rudnicki on this topic.” in a recommended list from Philipp Nell in his Report on experience and impressions about SAP Data Intelligence.

Second, on my list was Multi-model, and it got the boost this year too. If you are still not too familiar with this, then I would recommend content from pre-TechEd Devtoberfest:

• SAP HANA Advanced Analytics enablement we recorded together with Mathias Kemeter and Markus Fath: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkPMdbn1vBs&list=PL6RpkC85SLQA8za7iX9FRzewU7Vs022dl
• An open-source and OrientDB discussion with Luigi Dell’Aquila: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwWzq-cRgds

and my series of hands-on exercises: https://blogs.sap.com/tag/sapteched2020-dat108/

I haven’t had progress with Machine Learning frameworks as I planned at the beginning at the year. Partially due to the fact, that there were quite a few other aspects of ML becoming more prominent and making the discipline more ubiquitous: Automation, Explainability, ready-to-use ML models. I scratched the surface covering them in my DIY (Apps or Analytics with) Machine Learning.

The area where I did not progress almost at all was learning the Go programming language. But instead, I paid a bit more attention to cloud skills passing three Azure certifications exams and three GCP quests.

Personal

It was a year of quite a few kilometers made hiking and cycling on regional Single Tracks, and quite a few beers checked in on Untappd. In 2020 I lost 10kg, so hopefully, it means I have cycled more than 🍻

What were the highlights of your 2020?
-Vitaliy aka @Sygyzmundovych