The Maiden Voyage

Welcome

This newsletter is a bit of an experiment for me. In the past, I have done technical blogging, written my fair share of documentation, and I even wrote a book. Most of my writing has been largely mechanical, with the intent to inform. However, this tutorial style of writing that is heavy on content and light on creativity makes me feel like a computer. 🤖 Beep! boop!

I want to try something new. My analyst colleague, also a talented and insightful writer, encouraged me to get back into writing, and I have decided to go for it, but hopefully in a less soul-crushing form than writing a programming language tutorial.

This newsletter, while largely focused on topic in data, engineering, and the tech world, is a human newsletter. I hope that you will also learn something new with each issue. I have lots of interests, from database internals to organizational design to formal verification to tacos. Mmmmm, tacos. 🌮 

What Should I Expect?

Where were we? Right - what to expect from this newsletter. As a data engineer, I can speak with a good deal of expertise on the data landscape as well as tools and techniques for data engineering. As a software professional for the past decade or so, I can speak to technological changes, distributed computing, database internals, compilers, and engineering teams. As a former student of political philosophy, I have opinions, which may pop up here and there.

Yes, you will get my opinions on data engineering and my thoughts on the data landscape. You will also get a dose of Andrew. As AI-generated articles and low-cost SEO blog farming have led to a glut of generic content, readers are left with a challenge to find content with a human connection. I write as a human to other humans, so expect occasional goofiness, personal anecdotes, a hint of passion, and hopefully a large serving of empathy.

What’s Up With the Name?

Why the name “Data Spores: Tiny ideas that spread”? The short answer is that I am passionate about data, and I think that mushrooms are amazing. The still short but slightly longer answer is this: Fungi reproduce by spreading microscopic spores into the environment, where they are spread by the wind or animals. A single spore is tiny, but it has the potential to develop into the largest organism on the planet. I recognize that I am one small voice out of many that you are likely to hear today. Even within the data community, my voice is one out of many, but I hope that the my words and ideas, like the humble spore, may travel far and grow into something bigger.

I Want to Hear from You!

Do you have ideas on topics you would like me to cover? Send me an email at andrewmeredith [at] fastmail [dot] com.

Do we actually believe that writing our emails like that 👆️ will stop the bots? I mean, AI can generate beautiful artwork and write unit tests. I’m pretty sure it can also handle elementary text parsing.