Category: software engineering

Database Normalization

Even a good database design can't always protect against bad data. But there are plenty of occasions when a good database design helps us avoid the bigger of the possible bad data - database headaches. Thus, in this article I'll discuss database normalization: what it is, why we do it, and how we do it. I'll also discuss how we can determine when a database table is normalized 'enough' and what indications we can look for that suggest bad data might pose a problem for our database.

Getting started with Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS) was the most popular Cloud provider available through the first quarter of 2022, controlling 33% of the entire market; beating Microsoft Azure and it's 21% share. Both organizations and individual developers use cloud services from AWS, Microsoft, and other vendors for machine learning, data analytics, cloud native development, application migration, and many other services. In this short article I'll discuss how to setup your own AWS account, as the root user, then how to create your first IAM admin user, before finally introducing some of the main services that standout as the most useful through a data scientists career.

Integrating Django with Tailwind CSS

Django is one of the most popular Python full-stack web frameworks available. It's high-level design makes rapid development of web apps easier and cleaner while requiring less code. TailwindCSS is rapidly becoming the first choice CSS framework for styling modern websites. It's utility-first approach makes creating beautifully styled apps with consistent choices of colour, spacing, typography (and everything else CSS) far easier for a great looking website or app. In this article I'll show you how you can combine these two frameworks so that they work together without missing out on monitoring development changes with both npm and Django development servers.

Fundamentals of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has come to dominate how most modern day internet and mobile based applications, as well as many other compute and data services, are delivered and maintained. In this article I'll discuss some of the fundamental concepts of cloud computing - without focusing on any particular cloud service provider. I will also discuss enough of the differences between the different categories, types, development, and service models of cloud computing to help you take your first steps into this computing domain.

Lambdas, map, and filter: Functional programming tools in Python

Functions are an especially flexible aspect of the Python language that can be used for much more than simply code generation. As full-blown objects in and of themselves they can be freely passed around a program allowing for generalisation and abstraction of progamming ideas. But Python also provides a more expressive form of function object: the 'lambda' expression. In this article I'll explore the 'lambda' expression, what it is and how it can be used. I'll then cover the built-in tools 'map' and 'filter' and how they, along with 'lambda' represent the functional programming side of Python.

By Example: Classes and Object-Oriented Programming in Python

A class is a data structure than can contain both variables and functions within a single entity. In Python, such classes are first class objects - and by extension, once we create an instance of a class we say that we have created an instance object. Beyond this basic practical standpoint, object-oriented programming (OOP) embodies three defining principles: (1) encapsulation, (2) inheritance, and (3) polymorphism - and by utilising these design methods we can vastly reduce the amount of code duplication in our programmes, as well creating code that is conceptually easier to understand. In this article I'll start with a practical example that demostrates all three principles of OOP and then work through the script, line by line, to discuss how Python implements classes and object-oriented programming.