Code. Build. Repeat.

I've been doing data science professionally now for coming up to 2 years (soon). From what I've learnt over this time I've put together the following visual guide to help explain to others what data science is. The End

Disclaimer: This is Not My Idea The concept of a hobbystreak is not something I have created and, in fact, has been around for a long time. I personally came across hobbystreaks following other people on Twitter as part of another hobby of mine. Mainly following Dana Howl ( Dana Howl's Twitter account ). Everyday  she posts an update of a project she has on the go along with the hastags #HobbyStreakDayX and #Hobbystreak. The idea behind a hobbystreak is straightforward and there are two main parts to it: A small amount of effort everyday over a long period of time adds up The public record of social media helps to motivate you to keep it up Why do This? I have lots of failed and half started personal projects under my belt and lots of other projects that I want to do. I also have other commitments that I tend to obey and allow to rule my time rather than work on the things I'm passionate about. (Also, I procrastinate when I could be spending my time on something

Last year I passed the Microsoft Developing SQL Databases exam (MS 70-762 - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-70-762.aspx ). I've previously passed the Microsoft Querying Data with Transact-SQL exam (MS 70-761 - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/exam-70-761.aspx ) but found some of the concepts in the MS 70-762 exam a little more difficult to understand. Probably because I've previously never had to maintain and optimise SQL databases. Whereas, with the MS 70-761 exam I had at least had experience querying data in SQL prior to preparing for the exam. I'm a huge fan of Pluralsight and the courses authors publish on the platform and there were some Pluralsight courses that really helped me out with my preparation for the MS 70-762 exam. So I thought it would be helpful for others preparing for this exam if I put these courses together into a playlist. The MS 70-762 Exam The MS 70-762 Developing SQL Databases exam is about the setting up, manag

I was very fortunate to be given the opportunity by my employer to change role from a full-stack software developer to data scientist with the in-house Data Team. I've now spent over a year in this new data science role and thoroughly enjoy the different challenges it brings over software development. I wanted to write this blog post to firstly help me reflect on what I've been doing over the past year: what changes I had to undergo, what I did well, what I could improve on. And, secondly to help others in a similar situation to me - either thinking about transitioning or already transitioning by writing about some of the pitfalls and challenges I've had. Before I start, to elaborate on my background a little bit more: I haven't always been a software developer. I have completed both a Masters and PhD in Computer Science. So I didn't go into the move completely blind, I did have some previous experience of tools, models and methodologies to rely on. But I have a

Following on from my previous post visually showing how T-SQL PIVOT works ( here ), the following presents a visual guide to how set operators are used in T-SQL and what restrictions there are when creating such queries. I found these diagrams very helpful when revising for my MS 70-761 (Querying Data with Transact-SQL) exam.  What are the Set Operators? Results of T-SQL queries are sets, as such set operators can be applied to the results of multiple queries to combine the results in different ways. There are 4 set operators in T-SQL: UNION: the concatenation of results from both sets, excluding duplicates. UNION ALL: the concatenation of results from both sets, including duplicates. INTERSECT: the results that appear in both sets. EXCEPT: think of this set operator as the results that appear in one set minus the results that appear in another set. Basic Set Operator Query Format The basic format for using a set operator is to have multiple select statements (sub qu

I recently passed my 70-761 Querying Data with Transact-SQL exam as part of mt revision I created the following diagram to help me remember how PIVOT and UNPIVOT work. I thought it would be good to share. For completeness, the following gives the syntax to use when using PIVOT and UNPIVOT. WITH PivotData AS ( SELECT <grouping column> , <spreading column> , <aggregation column> FROM <source table> ) SELECT <grouping column>, <distinct spreading values> FROM PivotData PIVOT (<aggregation function>(<aggregation column>) FOR <spreading column> IN <distinct spreading values>)); SELECT <grouping column>, <target names column>, <target values column> FROM <pivoted source table> UNPIVOT(<target values column> FOR <target names column> IN (<distinct spreading values>)); The End