2019#24 Readings of the Week
3 minutes read | 463 words by Ruben BerenguelAlthough this week I have been reading mostly Apache Cassandra documentation, I have tried to avoid an onslaught of tips, tricks and readings on it. Just one article.
NOTE: The themes are varied, and some links below are affiliate links. City planning, writing, Python’s typing, Cassandra. Expect a similar wide range in the future as well. You can check all my weekly readings by checking the tag here. You can also get these as a weekly newsletter by subscribing here.
Image credits: Gústi Productions
BLUF: The Military Standard That Can Make Your Writing More Powerful
A technique to be succinct and clear in communication. Pair it with five.sentenc.es for maximum punch.
📺 Design Challenges of Bloop by Jorge Vican
One of the presentations I enjoyed the most in Scala World 2019 (aside from Sam Aaron’s presentation on Sonic Pi)
Types for Python HTTP APIs: An Instagram Story
Instagram is a clear success story on Django. But Python’s lack of stronger static typing is always a thread. This is how they approach the problem
Town in Iceland Paints 3D Zebra Crosswalk To Slow Down Speeding Cars
I visited Stykkyshólmur (and I had used this city name as secret question once… Bad idea) many years ago. I recognised the city just from the pictures in this article. I think this is an excellent idea, and all pedestrian crossings should be painted this way. Subconsciously, everyone would brake, even knowing it’s flat.
How does a relational database work
An extremely long and informative article on internals. Only thing missing would be discussing the Volcano iterator model. Or I didn’t see it there.
7 mistakes when using Apache Cassandra
I’ve read a lot of material about Cassandra this past week, and this is a standout.
The Wheel
How large teams can handle reporting
Learning to build distributed systems
Tips and tricks on how to work on big, distributed systems.
📚 Programming Interviews Exposed
I skimmed most of it. Interesting… but boring as well. Not sure I’d recommend unless you plan on interviewing extensively.
📚🔈 Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models
I went for the audiobook. This is the extended version of G. Weinberg’s (of DuckDuckGo fame) post on mental models. It is an excellent book: compares extremely well with Shane Parrish’s one.
📚🔈 Black Box Thinking
Wavy. Some parts were extremely interesting (especially the beliefs/mind changing part), others were pretty much average of worse. But, I’m not sure if it is because I’m already familiar with the material.
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