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colton

@colton.boo
2.4K followers 1.9K following 95 posts

Data Engineering / Music / Photography / Tinkering cmpadden.github.io

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colton @colton.boo · 09/07/2026
It was great to join @christianminich.com in this webinar. He shared a lot of great insights in how he's using AI for data engineering.
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Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 19/05/2026
I wrote an Almanack like Charlie Munger and Naval Ravikant did, but about life wisdom and my time of using Dagster for data orchestration over the years. Since using it in 2018, the story has gone from complexity to composability and from orchestrating to a full data platform.
The Dagster Almanack highlights data orchestration, composability, and governance with icons and structured layout.
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colton @colton.boo · 09/04/2026
We just released version 1.13.0 of @dagster.io with lots of great features like official Dagster skills for, virtualized assets for modeling entities like views, partitioned asset checks, and more. Check out the blog post for more details.
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colton @colton.boo · 10/02/2026
Learn how we built a light weight evaluation framework for the official Dagster skills. With short feedback loops and quantitative measurements, we were able to make quick improvements that improving decision routing and context management. dagster.io/blog/evaluat...
dagster.io
Measuring the effectiveness of the Dagster Skills
Learned how we built a light weight evaluation framework for quantiatively measuring the effectiveness of the Dagster Skills
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colton @colton.boo · 09/01/2026
If you're a Python developer using Claude Code, or something similar, we just published a blog that covers 10 rules we add to our prompt for drastically improved code gen. And we include the full prompt at the end of the post! dagster.io/blog/dignifi...
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All Things Open @allthingsopen.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
🚀 NEW on We ❤️ Open Source 🚀 How can a small team answer 16,000+ community Qs/month? Colton Padden (@colton.boo) reveals Dagster’s smart AI-powered doc strategy—built for humans and LLMs. allthingsopen.org/articles/sca... #WeLoveOpenSource #OpenSource #AI #TechDocs #Dagster #CommunitySupport
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colton @colton.boo · 16/12/2025
We've been improving how we create educational content at @dagster.io: optimizing feedback loops, generating content for different learning styles, and leveraging LLM-powered workflows. You can find our lessons learned on the @allthingsopen.bsky.social "We Love Open Source" blog!
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Christian Minich @christianminich.com · 07/11/2025
“Flexibility without fragmentation” In addition to some solid alteration, it’s also a great explanation of how to build a data team and how your system can and should scale. @colton.boo and Dennis Hume have an awesome new ebook on this topic, check it out! #dataBS dagster.io/how-to-scale...
dagster.io
How to Scale Data Teams | Free eBook from Dagster
Download Dagster's free eBook to learn how to build systems that scale with clarity, reliability, and confidence.
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colton @colton.boo · 12/10/2025
Excited to be at All Things Open tomorrow! Come hang out at the @dagster.io booth, or see my talk “Enabling education with a little help from AI” at 1:45 EST on Tuesday!
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Christian Minich @christianminich.com · 28/07/2025
Read this post you work in data analytics. A similar mindset problem pervades sales engineering as well, especially in the demo / early stages of discovery. Understand your prospect’s context. Who are they? What do they care about? What value can you provide them? That’s what you show.
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colton @colton.boo · 17/06/2025
MotherDuck is live now! DuckLake & The Future of Open Table Formats ft. Jordan Tigani & Hannes Mühleisen www.youtube.com/live/yn07s-_...
youtube.com
DuckLake & The Future of Open Table Formats ft. Jordan Tigani & Hannes Mühleisen
YouTube video by MotherDuck
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colton @colton.boo · 23/05/2025
New Oxidise Your Command Line just dropped. Some that stand out to me are: xh, fselect, and presenterm! www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWMQ...
youtube.com
Oxidise Your Command Line (2025 Edition)
YouTube video by No Boilerplate
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colton @colton.boo · 22/05/2025
mpv might just be the best way to watch twitch.tv. mpv.io
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colton @colton.boo · 17/05/2025
@pycon.us might just be my favorite conference ever. everyone is so nice!
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Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 02/05/2025
I'm writing about #opentableformats. With the newest entries of AWS S3 tables and Cloudflare R2, it's interesting to reassess the market and see where the future with managed Iceberg Tables leads us. What's your take? And anything missing on the evolution below?
Open Table Format Evolution
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colton @colton.boo · 09/04/2025
Refactored `chatblade.nvim` to use `llm`, and renamed the project to `llm.nvim`. It's archaic compared these agentic MCP workflows, but it's completely replaced Googling programming related questions.
Screenshot of the https://github.com/cmpadden/llm.nvim repository README.
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colton @colton.boo · 03/04/2025
I sat down to chat with Chris about "Project Airlift", a way to easily observe Airflow environments directly from Dagster. With a couple of lines of code, you can get a holistic picture into all of your environments, and then optionally migrate them!
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dagster.io @dagster.io · 01/04/2025
🚨 New Course Alert 🚨 We are pleased to announce that the new "Testing with Dagster" course is now live on Dagster University. dagster.io/blog/dagster...
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colton @colton.boo · 21/03/2025
Tinkering with dltHub's REST API source to ingest data without having to write any bespoke code, and DuckDB's new local web UI, and I feel so spoiled with how good data tooling is getting!
Screenshot of the DuckDB's local UI and a code example using dltHub's REST source config.
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dagster.io @dagster.io · 13/03/2025
🚀 Want to preview the brand new `dg` cli, and a framework for building and working with YAML DSLs built on top of Dagster called "Components"? You can find a link to demo videos and a GitHub discussion in the thread!
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colton @colton.boo · 25/02/2025
Joe Naso and I just published an e-book covering the essential topics needed to build a data platform! Check it out if you're looking to learn more about data modeling, ingestion patterns, and common data architectures. dagster.io/how-to-build...
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colton @colton.boo · 24/02/2025
Ok, Claude Code, consider me impressed!
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Matthew Mullins @mmullins.coginiti.co · 13/02/2025
I think this is one of the most important books data people could be reading right now, especially if you need to work language models which need all the semantics they can get.
linkedin.com
Matthew Mullins on LinkedIn: Data modeling is very important for any number of reasons, but much of the…
Data modeling is very important for any number of reasons, but much of the discourse on data modeling focuses on the shape of the date. How easy is it to…
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Melody Joy Kramer @mkramer.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Announcing the Data.gov Archive lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/02...
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colton @colton.boo · 03/02/2025
Come join us if you’d like to learn more about LLM routing from experts in the field!
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Charlie Marsh @crmarsh.com · 29/01/2025
We’re building a new static type checker for Python, from scratch, in Rust. From a technical perspective, it’s probably our most ambitious project yet. We’re about 800 PRs deep!
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Christian Minich @christianminich.com · 25/01/2025
As someone who works at an open core company similar to Preset / Superset, this post really resonates with my experience. Buying a “hosted version of an open source library” made by that libraries creators has more benefits than “just” the hosting. preset.io/blog/running...
preset.io
Running Apache Superset on the Open Internet: A Report from the Fireline
Running Apache Superset on the open internet requires sophisticated solutions to security and performance challenges. Here we explore how to navigate these challenges while keeping data safe (or opt o...
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🐥pdrm🐣 @pedramnavid.com · 23/01/2025
docs.dagster.io
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colton @colton.boo · 23/01/2025
I'm really proud to share that the new Dagster docs are live; what an effort!
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colton @colton.boo · 23/01/2025
This is a great resource covering the tools you need as a data engineer!
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colton @colton.boo · 16/01/2025
Loved this discussion between @barrald.bsky.social from Hex and @pedramnavid.com from Dagster on the data ecosystem, and the impact of AI on the work of data engineers and analysts! www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JxD...
youtube.com
Friends of Data: Pedram Navid, Chief Dashboard Officer at Dagster
YouTube video by Hex
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Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 14/01/2025
I'm always really enjoying these presentations, sharing all the code and showcasing what's possible today. Amazing integrating BI tools such as Power BI, Looker, Tableau, or Sigma. I believe that's the first time an open-source orchestrator is fully end-to-end. 📺 youtu.be/z3trqkKPbsI?...
End-to-end dagster and MotherDuck example from Bluesky to Power BI.
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Alex Noonan @alexnoonan.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
In case you missed it, Shifting Left and Moving Forward with @matsonj.com, @colton.boo, and me is now live on Youtube! youtu.be/z3trqkKPbsI?...
youtu.be
Deep Dive - Shifting Left and Moving Forward with MotherDuck
YouTube video by Dagster
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Christian Minich @christianminich.com · 14/01/2025
Consolation in the data transformation startup space! Congrats to the SDF team 👏 #dataBS blog.sdf.com/p/dbt-labs-h...
blog.sdf.com
dbt Labs has Acquired SDF
Bringing the most advanced SQL understanding to your favorite data tool.
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dagster.io @dagster.io · 13/01/2025
Join us tomorrow where @alexnoonan.bsky.social, @matsonj.com, and @colton.boo will discuss: 🦆 Building an end-to-end data platform ingesting Bluesky data into MotherDuck, and PowerBI 👈 Shifting Left in Data Engineering 🧠 And AI-powered Data Engineering best practices lp.dagster.io/deep-dive-sh...
lp.dagster.io
Dagster Deep Dive - January 14
Join this deep dive on Tuesday, January 14th, for a discussion on modern data engineering workflows and best practices.
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colton @colton.boo · 07/01/2025
Did you know Dagster asset checks can directly access data from an asset using the built-in I/O manager. Here's a quick snippet showing how it's done!
Snippet of Dagster code showing how to create an asset_check that validates a Pandas dataframe using the built-in I/O manager.
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Alex Noonan @alexnoonan.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
This time of year is full of reflection and self-improvement. That's why our upcoming deep dive (Jan 14 at 9 a.m. PT) with @matsonj.com at MotherDuck will focus on improving data engineering workflows and leveraging AI tools at their best. Register here: lp.dagster.io/deep-dive-sh...
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colton @colton.boo · 06/01/2025
It's really exciting to see much the dlt ecosystem has grown!
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colton @colton.boo · 05/01/2025
Kurt Vonnegut’s short story, “EPICAC”, is about a man who depends on a sentient supercomputer to charm the woman he loves, and it feels more relevant than ever—you can find it in the collection of stories, “Welcome to the Monkey House”. www.goodreads.com/book/show/49...
goodreads.com
Welcome to the Monkey House
Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Von…
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Andy Pavlo @andypavlo.bsky.social · 01/01/2025
Buckle up because we're banging into the new year with my annual retrospective of the last year in databases! Highlights include license change blowback, Databricks vs. Snowflake gangwar, @duckdb.org's shotgun weddings, and buying a quarterback to impress your lover: www.cs.cmu.edu/~pavlo/blog/...
cs.cmu.edu
Databases in 2024: A Year in Review
Andy rises from the ashes of his dead startup and discusses what happened in 2024 in the database game.
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colton @colton.boo · 31/12/2024
Turns out it's pretty easy to render 3D models with p5js! Here's how I'm embedding models in blog post markdown with Nuxt, Nuxt Content, and p5. cmpadden.github.io/articles/nux...
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colton @colton.boo · 18/12/2024
I might need to go touch some grass… git-wrapped.com/profiles/cmp...
git-wrapped.com
GitHub Wrapped 2024 - Your Coding Year in Review
Like Spotify Wrapped, but for your GitHub activity! See your top languages, commit streaks, most productive days, and more in an engaging story format. Get your 2024 coding year in review now.
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colton @colton.boo · 16/12/2024
This video from Hank Green on not having an internal monologue is wild. I have aphantasia, and distinctly remember "gaining" an internal monologue as a child. But his description of thinking, and self, are unlike any I've heard before. www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmTM...
youtube.com
TIL Some People Have an "Inner Monologue"
YouTube video by vlogbrothers
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Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 15/12/2024
New book I’m starting to read. This years Spotify Wrapped was surprisingly disappointing and missed the fun in last years. I learned that the person behind much of Wrapped in previous years was let go last year. He is @glennmcdonald.bsky.social on Bluesky and he is the author of this book.
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Chris @chris.blue · 13/12/2024
A friend's dad once told me the easiest way to get an an engineer to do something was simply to declare that it couldn't be done. This stuck with me.
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Christian Minich @christianminich.com · 13/12/2024
Of course I chose Dagster and R! Psyched about this, built on some excellent work from Phillip Orlando. From Dagster you can: run an R process and then use the data _from R_ to get: * Asset metadata, including column schemas * Asset check result metadata * Markdown preview of the data #dataBS
Dagster UI with metadata about the column data types, the asset check results run from R, and the asset a preview from data run in R# make sure these packages are installed
library(reticulate)
library(readr)
library(glue)
library(magrittr)

# Ensure that RETICULATE_PYTHON is set to the poetry path
reticulate::py_config()
stopifnot(reticulate::py_module_available("dagster_pipes"))

# Function to convert R types to Python types
convert_r_to_python_types <- function(df) {
    # Get R types
    r_types <- sapply(df, class)
    
    # Define type mapping
    type_mapping <- list(
        "numeric" = "float",
        "integer" = "int",
        "character" = "str",
        "factor" = "str",
        "logical" = "bool",
        "Date" = "datetime.date",
        "POSIXct" = "datetime.datetime",
        "POSIXlt" = "datetime.datetime"
    )
    
    # Convert types
    python_types <- sapply(r_types, function(x) {
        if (x %in% names(type_mapping)) {
            type_mapping[[x]]
        } else {
            "object"  # default type
        }
    })
    
    return(reticulate::r_to_py(as.list(python_types)))
}


# Import Python modules
# R doesn't support selective imports like Python, so you have to do this
# to avoid typing the full namespace path repeatedly...
os <- reticulate::import("os")
dagster_pipes <- reticulate::import("dagster_pipes")
open_dagster_pipes <- dagster_pipes$open_dagster_pipes
PipesContext <- dagster_pipes$PipesContext

# https://rstudio.github.io/reticulate/articles/calling_python.html#with-contexts
with(open_dagster_pipes() %as% pipes, {
    context <- PipesContext$get()
    context$log$info("This is a log from R!")
    data(iris)
    context$log$info(head(iris))
    context$log$info(os$environ["MY_ENV_VAR_IN_SUBPROCESS"])
    output_dir <- Sys.getenv("OUTPUT_DIR")
    iris_head <- head(iris)
    context$log$info(glue::glue("output_dir: {output_dir}"))
    #python function to report back the materialization and metadata
    context$report_custom_message(
        payload = reticulate::r_to_py(list(
        "dagster/row_count" = nrow(iris),
         # if using report_asset_mater…
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Charles Frye @charles-irl.bsky.social · 13/12/2024
- 44 terms from all across the CUDA stack, each defined in its own article - promiscuous interlinks, so you can drill into details naturally in the flow of reading - slick themes and clean diagrams. who said technical docs had to be ugly? modal.com/gpu-glossary
modal.com
GPU Glossary
A glossary of terms related to GPUs.
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Simon Späti 🏔️ @ssp.sh · 09/12/2024
Great rant about dbt and `ref`. I'm currently trialing SDF, which auto-detects your tables and has a strong compiler built-in to check your SQL before running a single SQL. They even use Datafusion to run tests based on data types and definitions during build time. Has anyone else tried SDF?
maxhalford.github.io
A rant against dbt ref • Max Halford
Disclaimer Let me be absolutely clear: I think dbt is a great tool. Although this post is a rant, the goal is to be constructive and suggest an improvement. dbt in a nutshell dbt is a workflow orchest...
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Andy Pavlo @andypavlo.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
For my last class this semester, I tried to cram our Advanced Database course into one lecture. We cover the following database systems in 60min: youtu.be/fr5lIchF6pw • Google Dremel / BigQuery • Snowflake • Amazon Redshift • Yellowbrick • Databricks Photon • @duckdb.org • TabDB
youtu.be
#25 - BigQuery + Snowflake + Redshift + Databricks + DuckDB (CMU Intro to Database Systems)
YouTube video by CMU Database Group
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colton @colton.boo · 03/12/2024
This year I'm attempting to solve the advent of code challenges in Rust to branch out from my day-to-day Python. Days 1 through 3 weren't too bad, but we'll see how long I last! github.com/cmpadden/adv...
github.com
GitHub - cmpadden/advent-of-code
Contribute to cmpadden/advent-of-code development by creating an account on GitHub.
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