2 posts/1 link

December 31, 2024

AWS Certified Data Engineer Associate exam (via)

I always wonder how useful these types of exams are in practice. It often seems like they're mostly not very applicable to "real" work, but this one (and the associated Coursera courses) seem well constructed and practical.

I started a new job a couple of months ago that's much more like what this course describes as "data engineering" than the type of software engineering I'm used to and I have become painfully aware of how little I know about the "cloud" and all the various hosted services for working with data. This course feels different than other ones I've come across so far in that it appears to focus on very hands-on and realistic types of work, and notably also tasks that are very similar to what I'm actually doing day to day now. I think it could actually be very useful to pursue.

link/#aws#courses#data-engineering#exams

December 30, 2024

Yet another website reboot

Every year around this time I get an uncontrollable urge to redo my personal website. It's total madness but I don't know how to stop it. I am very inspired by other bloggers who are able to sustain a coherent presence on the internet for decades, and I want to be one of them. I always think I've narrowed down the problem and have a reasonable solution in mind, but really it's just the same cycle repeating itself. […2 min read]

post/#blogging#static-websites

Overcoming perfectionism

The main thing I want to overcome in 2025 is perfectionism. I have a very hard time making progress on projects until I'm confident they'll be "good", but the problem is that this is a totally arbitrary descriptor and usually irrelevant anyway. Not wanting to do things unless they're perfect prevents me from doing so many things in the first place. It's very frustrating but I don't know how to fix it yet. This is something I plan to work on this year. […1 min read]

post/#personal#reflections