2019#28 Readings of the Week

October 19, 2019 4 minutes read | 666 words by Ruben Berenguel

Some links are affiliate links

This is a slightly longer edition because my reading list was overflowing with 400+ articles. I “trimmed” it down to “only” 380 during this week, I had a lot of airport time due to going to Spark Summit Europe to give a talk.

NOTE: The themes are varied, and some links below are affiliate links. Bread making, a lot of data engineering, Rust, Agile. 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.

Blues jamming and Agile

I found it an interesting coincidence: I started attending a Blues Harmonica course recently, and the example used in this post is exactly about that.

A linguistic introduction to d3.js

D3 is super powerful. You wouldn’t go wrong by learning to use it (and I would be right in getting my knowledge back, haven’t written any in 4 years)

Appropriate Uses For SQLite

It’s always convenient to remember that SQLite is more powerful than you think

Copernicium Is A Strange Element Indeed

This was way more interesting than expected.

Do-nothing scripting: the key to gradual automation

I like the idea, it feels philosophically similar to how I automate stuff.

How Query Optimizer Works in RDBMS

I love this stuff.

Modeling adversaries with TLA+

I may have shared this one before. It’s still great.

Why Not Airflow?

From the Prefect creators, a list of problems with Airflow. They may be slanted for their own tool, but can’t disagree with their issues with Airflow, as an Airflow user. I want to try Prefect next, just in case. Airflow is… not it.

Rust in Avast

I have some proof-of-concept Rust code that is miles faster than equivalent (but unoptimized) Python code. I want to move it forward soon-ish.

Privacy Preserving Ad Click Attribution For the Web

I work in adtech, and as such I need to keep up with everything. This looks convoluted, but privacy preserving. Good enough?

Scrum is fragile, not Agile

I agree with the fragile statement, but not the arguments. Disagree with agility. I’ll explain my reasoning “soon”.

An Elite Athlete’s Real-Life Training Plan

This can be applied to anything: if you can make your “unproductive” or “unrelated” moments part of your goal, you are almost there.

Oliver Byrne: The Matisse of Mathematics

I haven’t read Byrne’s Euclid, but it sits happily in my shelf. It’s a beautiful book to peruse. And the drop capitals you see here are from it.

I have always had an attraction-repulsion with KSQL/streams. I think either Flink or Spark are better suited for this.

Flour power: meet the bread heads baking a better loaf

My partner used to prepare sourdough bread twice a week (our sourdough died 3 times so we have stopped for a while).

Learning Parser Combinators With Rust

Beware this is somewhat long, but you’ll learn a lot about Ps and Cs, and the F and M word will appear as well. Highly recommended (if you prefer an Scala approach, you could get an idea with this one)

“Oh, you’re a data… something?”: The Misunderstood Role Of A Data Engineer

It’s hard to explain…

The Rise of the Data Engineer

… and long to explain.

🔊 Dreaming in Code

An entertaining audiobook about a failed project. The name dropping of people involved and related is astounding.

📽 Internals of Speeding PySpark with Arrow

Talk I gave this Wednesday at Spark Summit Europe. It looks like people liked it, but of course only people that liked it say so, survivorship bias?

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