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Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

Dimensional Modeling: Facts, Dimensions, and Grains

Dimensional modeling is the most widely used approach for organizing analytics data....

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: March 10–17, 2026

The open lakehouse stack had one of its busiest weeks in months....

Alex Merced on Medium

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: March 10–17, 2026

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

AI Weekly: Agents Take Over, MCP Evolves, and Models Battle for Code

Week of March 10–17, 2026...

Alex Merced on Medium

AI Weekly: Agents Take Over, MCP Evolves, and Models Battle for Code

Alex Merced on Medium

Analyze Unstructured Data with SQL and AI

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

Data Modeling for the Lakehouse: What Changes

Traditional data modeling assumed you controlled the database....

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: March 3–10, 2026

The Apache lakehouse ecosystem had another active week....

Alex Merced on Medium

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: March 3–10, 2026

Alex Merced on Medium

How to Use Dremio with Claude Code: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

How to Use Dremio with Claude Code: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Learn about Dremio’s new Native Claude Connector...

Alex Merced on Medium

Why Slow Queries Kill AI Analytics Adoption

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

AI Weekly: March 3–10, 2026

Claude Code has hit number one among developer tools....

Alex Merced on Medium

AI Weekly: March 3–10, 2026

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

How to Use Dremio with Claude CoWork: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Learn about Dremio’s new Native Claude Connector...

Alex Merced on Medium

How to Use Dremio with Claude CoWork: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

Star Schema vs. Snowflake Schema: When to Use Each

Both star schemas and snowflake schemas are dimensional models....

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for ChatGPT: A Complete Guide to Getting Better Results

Getting consistently useful results from ChatGPT requires more than writing good prompts. The real differentiator is how you manage context: the backg...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for Claude Code: A Complete Guide for Developers

Claude Code is a terminal-native agentic coding assistant that lives in your command line and operates directly on your codebase. Unlike chat-based in...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for Claude CoWork: A Complete Guide for Knowledge Workers

Claude CoWork represents a fundamentally different approach to AI context management. Unlike chat interfaces where you send messages and receive respo...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for Claude Desktop: A Complete Guide to MCP, Computer Use, and Local File Access

Claude Desktop takes everything available in Claude Web and adds three capabilities that fundamentally change how you manage context: MCP server conne...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for Claude Web: A Complete Guide to Projects, Artifacts, and Intelligent Context

Claude's web interface at claude.ai combines one of the largest context windows in the industry with a structured Project system that makes it genuine...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for Cursor: A Complete Guide to the AI-Native Code Editor

Cursor is an AI-native code editor built on the VS Code foundation that integrates AI deeply into every aspect of the development workflow. Its contex...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for Gemini CLI: A Complete Guide to Terminal-Native AI Development

Gemini CLI is an open-source terminal agent powered by Gemini models that operates directly in your command line. It brings Google's AI capabilities i...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for Gemini Web and NotebookLM: A Complete Guide to Google's AI Knowledge Ecosystem

Google's AI ecosystem for knowledge work consists of two deeply integrated tools: Gemini (the conversational AI at gemini.google.com) and NotebookLM (...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for Google Antigravity: A Complete Guide to the Agent-First IDE

Google Antigravity is an agent-first IDE built by Google DeepMind's Advanced Agentic Coding team. It approaches context management differently from ot...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for OpenAI Codex: A Complete Guide Across Browser, CLI, and App

OpenAI Codex is not a chatbot. It is an autonomous software engineering agent that runs tasks in isolated cloud sandboxes, operates across a browser i...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for OpenCode: A Complete Guide to the Open-Source Terminal AI Agent

OpenCode is an open-source terminal-based AI coding agent that prioritizes privacy, local-first operation, and broad model provider support. Built as ...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for OpenWork: A Complete Guide to the Desktop AI Agent Framework

OpenWork is a desktop-native AI agent framework designed for local, multi-step task execution on your computer. Unlike browser-based AI tools or termi...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for Perplexity AI: A Complete Guide to Research-First AI Conversations

Perplexity AI occupies a unique position in the AI landscape: it is a research-first tool that combines conversational AI with real-time web search to...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for T3 Chat: A Complete Guide to the Unified Multi-Model AI Interface

T3 Chat is a modern web-based AI chat interface that gives you access to multiple AI models through a single unified platform. Its primary value propo...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for VS Code with LLM Plugins: A Complete Guide to Building Your Own AI-Powered IDE

Visual Studio Code is the most widely used code editor in the world, and its extensibility means you can integrate AI capabilities through a growing e...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for Windsurf: A Complete Guide to the AI Flow IDE

Windsurf is an AI-powered IDE built on the VS Code foundation that introduces the concept of "Flows," a paradigm where the AI maintains deep awareness...

Alex Merced's Blog

Context Management Strategies for Zed: A Complete Guide to the High-Performance AI Code Editor

Zed is a high-performance code editor built in Rust that prioritizes speed, simplicity, and real-time collaboration. Its AI integration is designed to...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) Explained: A Complete Guide to How Every Major AI Tool Connects to External Data

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) has become the universal standard for connecting AI models to external tools, data sources, and services. Originally ...

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

My Non-Fiction Library: Books on Data Lakehouses, Apache Iceberg, AI, and Beyond

I have spent the last several years writing, teaching, and speaking about data architecture, open table formats, and AI-assisted development....

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

Stories I Created: A Tour of My Fiction Books

I am a technologist and technical author by day, but I also create fiction....

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: February 26 – March 5, 2026

Get Data Lakehouse Books:...

Alex Merced on Medium

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: February 26 — March 5, 2026

Alex Merced on Medium

AI Weekly: Claude Code Dominates, MCP Goes Mainstream — Week of March 5, 2026

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

AI Weekly: Claude Code Dominates, MCP Goes Mainstream — Week of March 5, 2026

The past seven days confirmed what developers have been saying for months: AI coding tools are no longer optional, and the competition is reshaping ho...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with Amazon Kiro: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Amazon Kiro is an agentic AI IDE from AWS that introduces spec-driven development to the coding workflow. Instead of jumping straight to code, Kiro he...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with Claude Code: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Claude Code is Anthropic's terminal-based coding agent. It reads your files, writes code, runs commands, and maintains context across a session. Dremi...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with Claude CoWork: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Claude CoWork is Anthropic's desktop agentic assistant. Unlike Claude Code (a terminal coding agent), CoWork operates as a general-purpose autonomous ...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with Cursor: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Cursor is an AI-native code editor built as a fork of VS Code. It integrates AI directly into the editing experience with features like Chat, Composer...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with Gemini CLI: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Gemini CLI is Google's open-source terminal-based AI agent. It runs directly in your terminal, powered by Gemini models with a 1-million token context...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with GitHub Copilot: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

GitHub Copilot is the most widely adopted AI coding assistant, integrated into VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, and the GitHub platform. Its agent mode allows...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with Google Antigravity: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Google Antigravity is an agent-first IDE built by Google DeepMind. Its autonomous agents plan multi-step tasks, write code, browse documentation, and ...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with JetBrains AI Assistant: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

JetBrains AI Assistant is built into IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, DataGrip, and every JetBrains IDE. It provides AI chat, inline code generation, multi-fil...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with OpenAI Codex CLI: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

OpenAI Codex CLI is a terminal-based coding agent built in Rust. It reads your codebase, writes files, executes commands, and supports MCP for connect...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with OpenCode: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

OpenCode is an open-source, terminal-based AI coding agent released under the MIT license. It provides a TUI with split panes, uses the Language Serve...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with OpenWork: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

OpenWork is an open-source desktop AI agent built on the OpenCode engine. It runs entirely on your machine with your own API keys, giving you full con...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with Windsurf: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Windsurf is an AI-native code editor built as a fork of VS Code. Its standout feature is Cascade, an agentic AI system that plans and executes multi-s...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Use Dremio with Zed: Connect, Query, and Build Data Apps

Zed is an open-source, GPU-accelerated code editor written in Rust. It is designed for speed and collaboration, with a built-in AI assistant that supp...

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

Conceptual, Logical, and Physical Data Models Explained

Most data teams jump straight from a stakeholder request to creating database tables....

Alex Merced's Blog

Classify Your Data with SQL: A Hands-On Guide to Dremio's AI_CLASSIFY Function

Most classification workflows require exporting data to Python, running a model, and importing results back into your warehouse. Dremio's AI_CLASSIFY ...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Amazon Redshift to Dremio Cloud: Extend Your Warehouse with Federation and AI Analytics

Amazon Redshift is AWS's managed data warehouse, designed for petabyte-scale analytics. If your organization chose Redshift for analytical workloads, ...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Amazon S3 to Dremio Cloud: Query Your Data Lake with SQL, Federation, and AI

Amazon S3 is the default landing zone for data in the cloud. Log files, Parquet datasets, CSV exports, JSON events, IoT telemetry, and raw data dumps ...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Any Iceberg REST Catalog to Dremio Cloud: Universal Lakehouse Access

The Apache Iceberg REST Catalog specification defines a standard HTTP API for managing Iceberg table metadata. Any catalog implementation that conform...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Apache Druid to Dremio Cloud: Add SQL Joins, AI, and Governance to Your Real-Time Analytics

Apache Druid is a real-time analytics database designed for sub-second queries on high-ingestion-rate event data. Clickstream analytics, application m...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect AWS Glue Data Catalog to Dremio Cloud: Query and Manage Your AWS Iceberg Tables

AWS Glue Data Catalog is AWS's managed metadata service for data lakes. It stores table definitions, schemas, partition information, and statistics fo...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Azure Storage to Dremio Cloud: Query Your Microsoft Data Lake with SQL and AI

Azure Storage is Microsoft's cloud storage platform, spanning Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 (ADLS Gen2), and Azure Files. If your organiz...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Azure Synapse Analytics to Dremio Cloud: Multi-Cloud Data Warehouse Federation

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics combines big data analytics and enterprise data warehousing into a single Azure-integrated platform. If your organiz...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Databricks Unity Catalog to Dremio Cloud: Query Delta Lake Tables with Federation and AI

Databricks Unity Catalog is Databricks' governance layer for data and AI assets. It manages Delta Lake tables, machine learning models, feature stores...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Dremio Software to Dremio Cloud: Hybrid Federation Across Deployments

Dremio Cloud can connect to Dremio Software (self-managed) instances as a federated data source. This creates a hybrid deployment where Dremio Cloud s...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Google BigQuery to Dremio Cloud: Cross-Cloud Analytics Without Data Movement

Google BigQuery is Google Cloud's serverless data warehouse. If your organization uses Google Cloud Platform, BigQuery is where your analytics data, m...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect IBM Db2 to Dremio Cloud: Modernize Mainframe Analytics with Federation and AI

IBM Db2 is the relational database that powers critical applications across banking, insurance, government, healthcare, and manufacturing. For organiz...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Microsoft SQL Server to Dremio Cloud: Federate Enterprise Data Without ETL

Microsoft SQL Server is one of the most widely deployed enterprise databases in the world. ERP systems, CRM platforms, financial applications, and cus...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect MongoDB to Dremio Cloud: SQL Analytics on Document Data

MongoDB is the most popular NoSQL document database. It stores data in flexible JSON-like documents, making it ideal for applications with evolving sc...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect MySQL to Dremio Cloud: Federated Analytics Without ETL

MySQL runs more web applications, SaaS platforms, and e-commerce backends than any other database. It's fast for transactional reads and writes, but i...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Oracle Database to Dremio Cloud: Enterprise Analytics Without Data Movement

Oracle Database runs the most critical enterprise applications in the world — ERP systems, financial ledgers, supply chain management, and HR platform...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect PostgreSQL to Dremio Cloud: Query, Federate, and Accelerate Your Data

PostgreSQL powers more production applications than almost any other open-source database. It's where your customer records, transaction logs, product...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect SAP HANA to Dremio Cloud: Unlock Analytics Beyond the SAP Ecosystem

SAP HANA is the in-memory database platform that powers SAP S/4HANA, SAP BW/4HANA, and custom enterprise applications across finance, manufacturing, l...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Snowflake Open Catalog to Dremio Cloud: Multi-Engine Iceberg Analytics

Snowflake Open Catalog is Snowflake's managed implementation of the Apache Iceberg REST catalog specification, based on the open-source Apache Polaris...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Snowflake to Dremio Cloud: Federate, Govern, and Accelerate Beyond Snowflake

Snowflake is a popular cloud data warehouse known for its separation of storage and compute, near-zero maintenance, and broad ecosystem. Many organiza...

Alex Merced's Blog

Connect Vertica to Dremio Cloud: Federation for Analytics-Optimized Data

Vertica is a columnar analytics database engineered for fast aggregate queries on large datasets. It was built from the ground up for analytical workl...

Alex Merced's Blog

Dremio's Built-in Open Catalog: Your Zero-Configuration Apache Iceberg Lakehouse

Every Dremio Cloud account starts with a built-in Open Catalog — a fully managed Apache Iceberg catalog with integrated storage. When you create a Dre...

Alex Merced's Blog

Extract Structured Data from Text with Dremio's AI_GENERATE Function

Unstructured text is the most underused data in most organizations. Customer emails sit in inboxes. Contract notes live in text fields. Meeting summar...

Alex Merced's Blog

Generate Summaries and Insights with Dremio's AI_COMPLETE Function

Every data team has a version of this problem: a table full of raw data that needs human-readable summaries, translations, or narrative descriptions. ...

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: February 18–25, 2026

Get Data Lakehouse Books:...

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

AI Weekly: Rubin GPUs, Vibe Coding Debates, and MCP Goes Global

This week brought major hardware news from NVIDIA, heated debates about AI coding productivity, and the MCP protocol expanding from a developer tool i...

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

What Is Data Modeling? An Introduction

Every database, data warehouse, and data lakehouse starts with the same question: how should this data be organized?...

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

Apache Data Lakehouse Weekly: February 11–17, 2026

Get Data Lakehouse Books:...

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

AI Weekly: Feb 11–17, 2026

Developers stopped writing code by hand....

Alex Merced's Blog

Batch vs. Streaming: Choose the Right Processing Model

!Batch processing in scheduled groups vs streaming in continuous flow(/assets/images/2026/debp/06-batch-vs-streaming/batch-vs-streaming.png)......

Alex Merced's Blog

Conceptual, Logical, and Physical Data Models Explained

!Three layers of data modeling from business concepts to database implementation(/assets/images/2026/data_modeling/02-types-of-data-models/types-of-da...

Alex Merced's Blog

Data Engineering Best Practices: The Complete Checklist

!Comprehensive data engineering checklist organized by categories with status indicators(/assets/images/2026/debp/10-de-best-practices-checklist/de-ch...

Alex Merced's Blog

Data Modeling Best Practices: 7 Mistakes to Avoid

!Checklist of data modeling quality markers with warning symbols on common mistakes(/assets/images/2026/data_modeling/10-data-modeling-best-practices/...

Alex Merced's Blog

Data Modeling for Analytics: Optimize for Queries, Not Transactions

!OLTP normalized model vs. OLAP denormalized model side by side(/assets/images/2026/data_modeling/07-data-modeling-for-analytics/analytics-data-modeli...

Alex Merced's Blog

Data Modeling for the Lakehouse: What Changes

!Traditional data warehouse model vs. open lakehouse model with flexible schema and views(/assets/images/2026/data_modeling/04-data-modeling-lakehouse...

Alex Merced's Blog

Data Quality Is a Pipeline Problem, Not a Dashboard Problem

!Data quality checks enforced at the pipeline validation stage before data reaches consumers(/assets/images/2026/debp/03-data-quality-first/data-quali...

Alex Merced's Blog

Data Vault Modeling: Hubs, Links, and Satellites

!Data Vault model showing Hubs, Links, and Satellites as interconnected components(/assets/images/2026/data_modeling/09-data-vault-modeling/data-vault...

Alex Merced's Blog

Data Virtualization and the Semantic Layer: Query Without Copying

!Data virtualization — connecting sources to a unified semantic layer without copying(/assets/images/2026/semantic_layer_seo/07-data-virtualization-se...

Alex Merced's Blog

Denormalization: When and Why to Flatten Your Data

!Normalized model with many interconnected tables vs. denormalized wide flat table(/assets/images/2026/data_modeling/08-denormalization-when-why/denor...

Alex Merced's Blog

Dimensional Modeling: Facts, Dimensions, and Grains

!Dimensional model showing a central fact table connected to surrounding dimension tables(/assets/images/2026/data_modeling/05-dimensional-modeling/di...

Alex Merced's Blog

Headless BI: How a Universal Semantic Layer Replaces Tool-Specific Models

!Headless BI — one semantic layer serving all consumers(/assets/images/2026/semantic_layer_seo/08-headless-bi-semantic-layer/headless-bi.png)......

Alex Merced's Blog

How a Self-Documenting Semantic Layer Reduces Data Team Toil

!Self-documenting semantic layer — AI generating descriptions and labels automatically(/assets/images/2026/semantic_layer_seo/09-self-documenting-sema...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Build a Semantic Layer: A Step-by-Step Guide

!Building a semantic layer — Bronze, Silver, and Gold tiers(/assets/images/2026/semantic_layer_seo/02-how-to-build-semantic-layer/build-semantic-layer...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Design Reliable Data Pipelines

!Data pipeline architecture with four layers flowing from ingestion through staging, transformation, and serving(/assets/images/2026/debp/02-design-da...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Think Like a Data Engineer

!Data flowing through a system of interconnected pipeline stages from sources to consumers(/assets/images/2026/debp/01-think-like-data-engineer/data-e...

Alex Merced's Blog

Idempotent Pipelines: Build Once, Run Safely Forever

!Pipeline running multiple times and converging to the same result(/assets/images/2026/debp/04-idempotent-pipelines/idempotent-pipeline.png)......

Alex Merced's Blog

Partition and Organize Data for Performance

!Table data split into partitions by date with query scanning only the relevant partition(/assets/images/2026/debp/07-partition-and-organize/partition...

Alex Merced's Blog

Pipeline Observability: Know When Things Break

!Pipeline observability dashboard showing metrics, logs, and data lineage(/assets/images/2026/debp/09-observability-monitoring/observability-dashboard...

Alex Merced's Blog

Schema Evolution Without Breaking Consumers

!Schema as a contract between producers and consumers with version tracking(/assets/images/2026/debp/05-schema-evolution/schema-contract.png)......

Alex Merced's Blog

Semantic Layer Best Practices: 7 Mistakes to Avoid

!Semantic layer best practices checklist — checks and mistakes(/assets/images/2026/semantic_layer_seo/10-semantic-layer-best-practices/best-practices....

Alex Merced's Blog

Semantic Layer vs. Data Catalog: Complementary, Not Competing

!Data catalog and semantic layer — complementary systems bridged together(/assets/images/2026/semantic_layer_seo/04-semantic-layer-vs-data-catalog/cat...

Alex Merced's Blog

Semantic Layer vs. Metrics Layer: What's the Difference?

!Semantic layer vs metrics layer — the metrics layer is a subset(/assets/images/2026/semantic_layer_seo/03-semantic-layer-vs-metrics-layer/semantic-vs...

Alex Merced's Blog

Slowly Changing Dimensions: Types 1-3 with Examples

!Dimension timeline showing attribute values changing across time periods(/assets/images/2026/data_modeling/06-slowly-changing-dimensions/slowly-chang...

Alex Merced's Blog

Star Schema vs. Snowflake Schema: When to Use Each

!Star schema with central fact table surrounded by denormalized dimension tables(/assets/images/2026/data_modeling/03-star-schema-vs-snowflake/star-vs...

Alex Merced's Blog

Testing Data Pipelines: What to Validate and When

!Data pipeline testing pyramid with schema tests at the base, contract tests in the middle, and regression tests at the top(/assets/images/2026/debp/0...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Role of the Semantic Layer in Data Governance

!Data governance through a semantic layer — centralized policies and documentation(/assets/images/2026/semantic_layer_seo/06-semantic-layer-data-gover...

Alex Merced's Blog

What Is a Semantic Layer? A Complete Guide

!Semantic layer concept — translating raw data into business terms(/assets/images/2026/semantic_layer_seo/01-what-is-a-semantic-layer/semantic-layer-c...

Alex Merced's Blog

What Is Data Modeling? A Complete Guide

!Data entities connected by relationship lines forming a structured data model(/assets/images/2026/data_modeling/01-what-is-data-modeling/data-modelin...

Alex Merced's Blog

Why Your AI Initiatives Fail Without a Semantic Layer

!AI with vs without a semantic layer — failure modes and fixes(/assets/images/2026/semantic_layer_seo/05-why-ai-fails-without-semantic-layer/ai-semant...

Open Data Lakehouses for Everyone

A 2026 Introduction to Apache Iceberg

Apache Iceberg is an open-source table format for large analytic datasets....

Alex Merced's Blog

A 2026 Introduction to Apache Iceberg

An updated introduction to Apache Iceberg...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Practical Guide to AI-Assisted Coding Tools

An in-depth guide to understanding, choosing, and using AI-assisted coding tools effectively....

Alex Merced's Blog

What Are Recursive Language Models?

Recursive Language Models (RLMs) are a new class of language models that can call themselves to break down complex tasks into manageable parts. This a...

Alex Merced's Blog

2025 Year in Review Apache Iceberg, Polaris, Parquet, and Arrow

A look back at key developments in Apache Iceberg, Polaris, Parquet, and Arrow in 2025....

Alex Merced's Blog

dremioframe & iceberg - Pythonic interfaces for Dremio and Apache Iceberg

Discover DremioFrame and IceFrame, two new Python libraries that simplify working with Dremio and Apache Iceberg. Learn how these tools streamline dat...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introducing dremioframe - A Pythonic DataFrame Interface for Dremio

Discover dremioframe, a new Python library that offers a DataFrame-like experience for interacting with Dremio's data lakehouse platform. Learn how to...

Alex Merced's Blog

Comprehensive Hands-on Walk Through of Dremio Cloud Next Gen (Hands-on with Free Trial)

Walkthrough with the new trial of the Dremio Cloud Platform...

Alex Merced's Blog

2025-2026 Guide to Learning about Apache Iceberg, Data Lakehouse & Agentic AI

A curated guide to mastering Apache Iceberg, data lakehouse architectures, and the emerging field of Agentic AI for data professionals....

Alex Merced's Blog

An Exploration of the Commercial Iceberg Catalog Ecosystem

Dive into the world of commercial Iceberg catalogs and discover how they enhance data lakehouse architectures for modern data engineering....

Alex Merced's Blog

Building a Universal Lakehouse Catalog - Beyond Iceberg Tables

Exploring paths to a universal lakehouse catalog that supports multiple data formats and engines, building on Apache Iceberg's success....

Alex Merced's Blog

Intro to Apache Iceberg with Apache Polaris and Apache Spark

Learn how to leverage Apache Iceberg with Apache Polaris and Apache Spark to build scalable and efficient data lakehouses....

Alex Merced's Blog

The State of Apache Iceberg v4 - October 2025 Edition

What's Coming in Apache Iceberg v4: A Deep Dive into the Future of Open Table Formats...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Ultimate Guide to Open Table Formats - Iceberg, Delta Lake, Hudi, Paimon, and DuckLake

Understanding Iceberg, Delta Lake, Hudi, Paimon, and DuckLake...

Alex Merced's Blog

The 2025 & 2026 Ultimate Guide to the Data Lakehouse and the Data Lakehouse Ecosystem

What is the Data Lakehouse and the Data Lakehouse Ecosystem? This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know about the Data Lakehouse arch...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Endgame — Building an Autonomous Optimization Pipeline for Apache Iceberg

Learn how to automate compaction, snapshot expiration, and layout optimization in Apache Iceberg using metadata-driven triggers and orchestration tool...

Alex Merced's Blog

Managing Large-Scale Optimizations — Parallelism, Checkpointing, and Fail Recovery

Learn how to scale Apache Iceberg table optimizations across large datasets using parallelism, checkpointing, and fail recovery to ensure reliability ...

Alex Merced's Blog

Unlocking the Power of Agentic AI with Apache Iceberg and Dremio

Unlocking the Power of Agentic AI with Apache Iceberg and Dremio...

Alex Merced's Blog

Hidden Pitfalls — Compaction and Partition Evolution in Apache Iceberg

Partition evolution in Apache Iceberg is a powerful feature, but if not managed carefully, it can introduce fragmentation and impact compaction perfor...

Alex Merced's Blog

Using Iceberg Metadata Tables to Determine When Compaction Is Needed

Discover how to use Apache Iceberg's metadata tables to proactively detect small files, bloated manifests, and table fragmentation—so you can trigger ...

Alex Merced's Blog

Designing the Ideal Cadence for Compaction and Snapshot Expiration

Learn how to design an effective schedule for compaction and snapshot expiration in Apache Iceberg to balance cost, performance, and data freshness....

Alex Merced's Blog

Avoiding Metadata Bloat with Snapshot Expiration and Rewriting Manifests

Learn how to prevent and clean up metadata bloat in Apache Iceberg by expiring snapshots and rewriting manifests for better performance and manageabil...

Alex Merced's Blog

Smarter Data Layout — Sorting and Clustering Iceberg Tables

Improve query performance in Apache Iceberg by organizing your data layout with sorting and Z-order clustering. Learn how to reduce scan cost and impr...

Alex Merced's Blog

Optimizing Compaction for Streaming Workloads in Apache Iceberg

Learn how to design fast, incremental compaction strategies in Apache Iceberg to support high-throughput streaming pipelines without disrupting freshn...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Basics of Compaction — Bin Packing Your Data for Efficiency

Learn how standard compaction works in Apache Iceberg and why bin packing your data files is essential for maintaining query performance and cost effi...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Cost of Neglect — How Apache Iceberg Tables Degrade Without Optimization

Learn how Apache Iceberg tables can degrade over time without optimization and what issues this causes for performance, cost, and governance....

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Discover or Organize Lakehouse & Apache Iceberg Meetups

Guide on How to Be Part of the Lakehouse Community...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | What is Data Engineering?

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Understanding Data Sources and Ingestion

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | ETL vs ELT – Understanding Data Pipelines

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Batch Processing Fundamentals

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Streaming Data Fundamentals

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Data Modeling Basics

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Data Warehousing Fundamentals

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Data Lakes Explained

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Storage Formats and Compression

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Data Quality and Validation

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Metadata, Lineage, and Governance

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Scheduling and Workflow Orchestration

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Building Scalable Pipelines

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | DevOps for Data Engineering

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Cloud Data Platforms and the Modern Stack

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Data Lakehouse Architecture Explained

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | Apache Iceberg, Arrow, and Polaris

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Engineering Concepts | The Power of Dremio in the Modern Lakehouse

Introduction to the terms in data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Journey from AI to LLMs and MCP - 10 - Sampling and Prompts in MCP — Making Agent Workflows Smarter and Safer

Sampling and Prompts in MCP — Making Agent Workflows Smarter and Safer...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Journey from AI to LLMs and MCP - 9 - Tools in MCP — Giving LLMs the Power to Act

Tools in MCP — Giving LLMs the Power to Act...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Journey from AI to LLMs and MCP - 8 - Resources in MCP — Serving Relevant Data Securely to LLMs

Resources in MCP — Serving Relevant Data Securely to LLMs...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Journey from AI to LLMs and MCP - 7 - Under the Hood — The Architecture of MCP and Its Core Components

Under the Hood — The Architecture of MCP and Its Core Components...

Alex Merced's Blog

Journey from AI to LLMs and MCP - 6 - Enter the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — The Interoperability Layer for AI Agents

Enter the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — The Interoperability Layer for AI Agents...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Journey from AI to LLMs and MCP - 5 - AI Agent Frameworks — Benefits and Limitations

AI Agent Frameworks — Benefits and Limitations...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Journey from AI to LLMs and MCP - 4 - What Are AI Agents — And Why They're the Future of LLM Applications

What Are AI Agents — And Why They're the Future of LLM Applications...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Journey from AI to LLMs and MCP - 3 - Boosting LLM Performance — Fine-Tuning, Prompt Engineering, and RAG

Boosting LLM Performance — Fine-Tuning, Prompt Engineering, and RAG...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Journey from AI to LLMs and MCP - 2 - How LLMs Work — Embeddings, Vectors, and Context Windows

How LLMs Work — Embeddings, Vectors, and Context Windows...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Journey from AI to LLMs and MCP - 1 - What Is AI and How It Evolved Into LLMs

What Is AI and How It Evolved Into LLMs...

Alex Merced's Blog

Building a Basic MCP Server with Python

The Basics of Building a Basic MCP Server...

Alex Merced's Blog

Using Helm with Kubernetes - A Guide to Helm Charts and Their Implementation

A Guide on when to use Helm Charts for Kubernetes Deployment...

Alex Merced's Blog

Crash Course on Developing AI Applications with LangChain

A guide on building AI applications with LangChain, a framework for developing AI applications powered by Large Language Models (LLMs)....

Alex Merced's Blog

The Data Lakehouse - The Benefits and Enhancing Implementation

Understanding the value of a lakehouse and how to get that value faster...

Alex Merced's Blog

2025 Comprehensive Guide to Apache Iceberg

What is Apache Iceberg, How it Works, and Why it Matters!...

Alex Merced's Blog

When to use Apache Xtable or Delta Lake Uniform for Data Lakehouse Interoperability

A Guide on when to use Apache Xtable or Delta Lake Uniform for Data Lakehouse Interoperability...

Alex Merced's Blog

RAG Isn’t a Modeling Problem. It’s a Data Engineering Problem.

Why retrieval-augmented generation systems fail in enterprises—and what to do about it....

Alex Merced's Blog

Building Pangolin - My Holiday Break, an AI IDE, and a Lakehouse Catalog for the Curious

A personal story of how I built Pangolin Catalog over a holiday break using an AI-powered IDE....

Alex Merced's Blog

2025 Guide to Architecting an Iceberg Lakehouse

A Comprehensive Guide to Building a Data Lakehouse with Apache Iceberg...

Alex Merced's Blog

10 Future Apache Iceberg Developments to Look forward to in 2025

What is cool about Apache Iceberg's Future...

Alex Merced's Blog

Deep Dive into Dremio's File-based Auto Ingestion into Apache Iceberg Tables

Auto ingesting data from JSON, CSV, and Parquet files into Apache Iceberg Tables...

Alex Merced's Blog

Intro to SQL using Apache Iceberg and Dremio

Intro to SQL using Apache Iceberg and Dremio...

Alex Merced's Blog

Dremio, Apache Iceberg and their role in AI-Ready Data

The Role of Dremio and Apache Iceberg in AI-Ready Data...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Cargo and cargo.toml

Getting Started with Cargo and cargo.toml...

Alex Merced's Blog

Leveraging Python's Pattern Matching and Comprehensions for Data Analytics

Using Features like Pattern Matching and Comprehensions for Data Analytics...

Alex Merced's Blog

Hands-on with Apache Iceberg & Dremio on Your Laptop within 10 Minutes

How to get hands-on with Apache Iceberg...

Alex Merced's Blog

Data Modeling - Entities and Events

How to Model Events and Entities...

Alex Merced's Blog

All About Parquet Part 01 - An Introduction

All about the Apache Parquet File Format...

Alex Merced's Blog

All About Parquet Part 02 - Parquet's Columnar Storage Model

All about the Apache Parquet File Format...

Alex Merced's Blog

All About Parquet Part 03 - Parquet File Structure | Pages, Row Groups, and Columns

All about the Apache Parquet File Format...

Alex Merced's Blog

All About Parquet Part 04 - Schema Evolution in Parquet

All about the Apache Parquet File Format...

Alex Merced's Blog

All About Parquet Part 05 - Compression Techniques in Parquet

All about the Apache Parquet File Format...

Alex Merced's Blog

All About Parquet Part 06 - Encoding in Parquet | Optimizing for Storage

All about the Apache Parquet File Format...

Alex Merced's Blog

All About Parquet Part 07 - Metadata in Parquet | Improving Data Efficiency

All about the Apache Parquet File Format...

Alex Merced's Blog

All About Parquet Part 08 - Reading and Writing Parquet Files in Python

All about the Apache Parquet File Format...

Alex Merced's Blog

All About Parquet Part 09 - Parquet in Data Lake Architectures

All about the Apache Parquet File Format...

Alex Merced's Blog

All About Parquet Part 10 - Performance Tuning and Best Practices with Parquet

All about the Apache Parquet File Format...

Alex Merced's Blog

Orchestrating Airflow DAGs with GitHub Actions - A Lightweight Approach to Data Curation Across Spark, Dremio, and Snowflake

Advanced GitHub Actions for Data Engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Deep Dive Into GitHub Actions From Software Development to Data Engineering

Learning about GitHub Actions...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Guide to dbt Macros - Purpose, Benefits, and Usage

Learning about dbt Macros...

Alex Merced's Blog

Data Lakehouse Roundup 1 - News and Insights on the Lakehouse

What's Going on in the Data Lakehouse Space...

Alex Merced's Blog

Getting Started with Data Analytics Using PyArrow in Python

Learning to work with PyArrow to run analytics...

Alex Merced's Blog

Working with Collections in Rust | A Comprehensive Guide

Rust Arrays, Vectors and more!...

Alex Merced's Blog

What is Three-Tier Data (Bronze, Silver, Gold) and How Dremio Simplifies It

Process Data from Raw to Clean Aggregated Data...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Brief Guide to the Governance of Apache Iceberg Tables

Controlling Access to your Apache Iceberg Tables...

Alex Merced's Blog

Exploring Data Operations with PySpark, Pandas, DuckDB, Polars, and DataFusion in a Python Notebook

Learning to work with Python to ingest and query data...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate Directory of Apache Iceberg Resources

Apache Iceberg Education, Tutorials and more!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Change Data Capture (CDC) when there is no CDC

Handling Synching Changing Data Across Systems...

Alex Merced's Blog

Virtualization + Lakehouse + Mesh = Data At Scale

Combining Centralization and Decentralization for Data at Scale...

Alex Merced's Blog

Deep Dive into Data Apps with Streamlit

Building a Deploying Data Apps Easily...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Deep Dive into Docker Compose

A Comprehensive Guide to Docker Compose...

Alex Merced's Blog

In-Depth Guide to Working with Strings in Rust

Strings in Rust...

Alex Merced's Blog

Getting Started with Rust - A Modern Systems Programming Language

Get Started with Rust...

Alex Merced's Blog

Hands-on with Apache Iceberg on Your Laptop - Deep Dive with Apache Spark, Nessie, Minio, Dremio, Polars and Seaborn

The Evolving Data Lakehouse World...

Alex Merced's Blog

Why Data Analysts, Engineers, Architects and Scientists Should Care about Dremio and Apache Iceberg

The Evolving Data Lakehouse World...

Alex Merced's Blog

5 Trends in the Data Lakehouse Space

The Evolving Data Lakehouse World...

Alex Merced's Blog

Using the alexmerced/datanotebook Docker Image

Setting up a quick and easy data environment for data science and analytics...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding Apache Iceberg Delete Files

Continuing the Understand Apache Iceberg series, this article delves into the Manifest, a critical component of Apache Iceberg's architecture....

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding the Apache Iceberg Manifest

Continuing the Understand Apache Iceberg series, this article delves into the Manifest, a critical component of Apache Iceberg's architecture....

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding the Apache Iceberg Manifest List (Snapshot)

Continuing the Understand Apache Iceberg series, this article delves into the Manifest List, a critical component of Apache Iceberg's architecture....

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding Apache Iceberg's Metadata.json

The role and content of the metadata.json...

Alex Merced's Blog

What Apache Iceberg REST Catalog is and isn't

Understanding Iceberg Catalog Interoperability...

Alex Merced's Blog

ACID Guarantees and Apache Iceberg - Turning Any Storage into a Data Warehouse

What are ACID Guarantees? WHy do they matter?...

Alex Merced's Blog

Data Lakehouse 101 - The Who, What and Why of Data Lakehouses

The Who, What and Why of Data Lakehouses...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding the Polaris Iceberg Catalog and Its Architecture

Learn about the new open source Iceberg Catalog in Town...

Alex Merced's Blog

Apache Iceberg Reliability

Why Apache Iceberg Works...

Alex Merced's Blog

Upcoming Data Talks from Alex Merced (And how to follow)

Come see me talk live at these events...

Alex Merced's Blog

Databases Deconstructed - The Value of Data Lakehouses and Table Formats

Building up the Data Lakehouse...

Alex Merced's Blog

Video Course - Basics of Lakehouse Engineering - Apache Iceberg, Nessie, Dremio

Introductory Course to Data Engineering for Apache Iceberg Lakehouses...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Sorting Algorithms in JavaScript

Working with Sorting Algorithms in Javascript...

Alex Merced's Blog

Partitioning with Apache Iceberg - A Deep Dive

Benefits of Apache Iceberg Partition Evolution and Hidden Partitioning...

Alex Merced's Blog

3 Reasons Data Engineers Should Embrace Apache Iceberg

Benefits of Apache Iceberg...

Alex Merced's Blog

Running SQL on your Excel Files From Your Laptop with Dremio

How to run SQL on your Excel files easily...

Alex Merced's Blog

Deep Dive into Functional Programming in Javascript

Currying, Monad and Memos, Oh my!...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Deep Intro to Apache Iceberg and Resources for Learning More

Learning about Apache Iceberg...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding the Future of Apache Iceberg Catalogs

Java, Rest and the expanding open lakehouse ecosystem...

Alex Merced's Blog

End-to-End Basic Data Engineering Tutorial (Spark, Dremio, Superset)

Ingesting Data and Building BI Dashboards...

Alex Merced's Blog

5 Open Source Data Projects You Should Be Following

Apache Iceberg, Apache Arrow, Nessie, Ibis, Substrait...

Alex Merced's Blog

5 Reasons Dremio is the Ideal Apache Iceberg Lakehouse Platform

Understanding how catalogs work and which one to choose...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Apache Iceberg Lakehouse - The Great Data Equalizer

Disrupting the Snowflake/Databricks status quo...

Alex Merced's Blog

10 Reasons to Make Apache Iceberg and Dremio Part of Your Data Lakehouse Strategy

Understanding how catalogs work and which one to choose...

Alex Merced's Blog

A deep dive into the concept and world of Apache Iceberg Catalogs

Understanding how catalogs work and which one to choose...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Role of Ontologies in Data Management

What are ontologies and why they matter...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to ANSI SQL - Understanding the Syntax and Concepts

Learning the Standard SQL Syntax...

Alex Merced's Blog

An Introduction to Python

An overview of Python for beginners...

Alex Merced's Blog

What is the Data Lakehouse and the Role of Apache Iceberg, Nessie and Dremio?

Understanding the Value of the Data Lakehouse...

Alex Merced's Blog

Mastering Git | A Comprehensive Guide to git pull and git push

Having a better understanding of git pull and git push...

Alex Merced's Blog

Partitioning Practices in Apache Hive and Apache Iceberg

Deep Dive in Data Lake Table Partitioning...

Alex Merced's Blog

Columnar vs. Row-based Data Structures in OLTP and OLAP Systems

The Fundamentals of Data Systems...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding JavaScript Promises In-Depth

Understanding Javascript Promises and Asynchronous Code...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to Data Vault Modeling

Understanding the Data Vault Style of Data Warehouse Modeling...

Alex Merced's Blog

Table Format FUD - Thinking Through the Table Format Conversion (Apache Iceberg, Apache Hudi, Delta Lake)

Understanding how to choose a table format...

Alex Merced's Blog

Embracing the Future of Data Management - Why Choose Lakehouse, Iceberg, and Dremio?

The Future of Data Platforms...

Alex Merced's Blog

Open Lakehouse Engineering/Apache Iceberg Lakehouse Engineering - A Directory of Resources

Resources for learning how to Engineer an Open Data Lakehouse...

Alex Merced's Blog

Nessie - An Alternative to Hive & JDBC for Self-Managed Apache Iceberg Catalogs

Nessie is the only open-source catalog implementation specifically for Apache Iceberg....

Alex Merced's Blog

Apache Iceberg, Git-Like Catalog Versioning and Data Lakehouse Management - Pillars of a Robust Data Lakehouse Platform

This is where the combined power of Dremio’s Lakehouse Management features and Project Nessie's catalog-level versioning comes into play....

Alex Merced's Blog

No Code - Convert XLS/CSV files into Parquet with Dremio

Convert XLS/CSV Files without having to write python...

Alex Merced's Blog

Why Dremio is a must for Apache Iceberg Data Lakehouses

Why is Dremio so useful for Apache Iceberg data lakehouses...

Alex Merced's Blog

What is HTMX? Why it Matters? and How to use it.

The framework that is getting all the buzz about reducing the javascript you need to write...

Alex Merced's Blog

OOP Design Patterns in Javascript

An overview of OOP Design Patterns in Spark...

Alex Merced's Blog

An In-Depth Overview of Open Lakehouse Tech: Apache Iceberg & Nessie

Alex Merced's Blog

How to effectively learn software development

Alex Merced's Blog

Overview of the Open Lakehouse: Why Dremio?

Alex Merced's Blog

How to build a Java Spring JSON API from scratch

Alex Merced's Blog

How to write a JSON API in Scala with Play from scratch

Alex Merced's Blog

An Approach to Architecting a Lower Cost, Fast and Self-Service Data Lakehouse

Alex Merced's Blog

Building Full CRUD Rest API's with Flask & FastAPI using PsychoPG2

Alex Merced's Blog

Handling Cross-Origin Cookies with ExpressJS

Alex Merced's Blog

Creating a Local Data Lakehouse using Spark/Minio/Dremio/Nessie

Alex Merced's Blog

Project Nessie: A Look in the Depths

Alex Merced's Blog

Overview of File Encryption Algorithms for Everyone

Alex Merced's Blog

Parquet File Compression for Everyone (zstd, brotli, lz4, gzip, snappy)

Alex Merced's Blog

Dremio and Modern Data Architecture: Data Lakes, Data Lakehouses and Data Mesh

Alex Merced's Blog

What is Nessie and Why as a Data Engineer or Architect you should care?

Alex Merced's Blog

Resources for Learning more about Catalog level versioning with Project Nessie & Dremio Arctic (Rollbacks, Branching, Tagging and Multi-Table Txns)

Alex Merced's Blog

Overview of the Data Lakehouse, Dremio and Apache Iceberg

Understanding the Cutting Edge of Data Engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Using SimpleRPC with SvelteKit 1.0/Typescript

Easy to use RPC in your SvelteKit Application...

Alex Merced's Blog

Implementing a GraphQL API with a Solid-Start Application

Using this cutting edge framework with a Graphql api...

Alex Merced's Blog

Implementing a tRPC API with a Solid-Start Application

Using this cutting edge framework with a tRPC api...

Alex Merced's Blog

Building a Todo List with Solid Start

Seeing the Power of the latest javascript meta-framework...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding Spark Configurations with Apache Iceberg

How to configure Spark for using Apache Iceberg...

Alex Merced's Blog

5 Reasons Your Data Lakehouse should Embrace Dremio Cloud

How your data lakehouse can expand what's possible with Dremio Cloud....

Alex Merced's Blog

Brief Hands on Intro to Apache Iceberg

Engineer a Data Lakehouse with Apache Iceberg...

Alex Merced's Blog

Web Development Glossary 2022

The words you need to know as a web professional...

Alex Merced's Blog

Introduction to The World of Data - (OLTP, OLAP, Data Warehouses, Data Lakes and more)

An accessible high-level guide for data and non-data professionals...

Alex Merced's Blog

Guide to JSON, YAML and TOML

Popular formats for configuration...

Alex Merced's Blog

Making Multiple API Calls in Javascript

Different Patterns of Making Multiple API Calls...

Alex Merced's Blog

A 2022 Introduction to SQL

Learning Structured Query Language...

Alex Merced's Blog

2022 MongooseJS Cheatsheet

Details on working with MongooseJS...

Alex Merced's Blog

Express/EJS/Mongooose Build from Zero to Deploy

Building A Full Stack Application with ExpressJS...

Alex Merced's Blog

ExpressJS Cheatsheet 2022

Easy reference for using express...

Alex Merced's Blog

Express Todo List for Beginners

Creating backend applications with Nodejs...

Alex Merced's Blog

Web Storage API Part 1 - LocalStorage and SessionStorage

Where to store data in the users browser...

Alex Merced's Blog

Creating a Markdown Blog in 2022 with Next JS

Creating a Blog and Deploying with NextJS...

Alex Merced's Blog

Javascript DOM & jQuery Cheatsheet 2022

All the main bits summed up in one place...

Alex Merced's Blog

Getting Started with Scala 3

Powerful Functional & OOP JVM Language...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding SSH and What it is for

Logging Securely and Conveniently with SSH...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding RPC (tour of API protocols, gRPC nodejs walkthrough, and Apache Arrow Flight)

How to write Markdown and where you can use it...

Alex Merced's Blog

Creating a Consistent Developer Environment with Docker

Using Docker to create an Environment in PHP, Ruby, Python and more...

Alex Merced's Blog

Why All Developers Should Master Markdown

How to write Markdown and where you can use it...

Alex Merced's Blog

Becoming a Developer in 2022

How to switch careers within 12-18 months...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to create an One to Many Relationship with Auth in Python with Masonite

Using A Developer Friendly Web Framework in Python...

Alex Merced's Blog

Auth with Express with JWT, MongoDB, and Postgres

For simple web development...

Alex Merced's Blog

Simple Setup for Application Wide State in React

Sharing State Across Your React App with just React (No Redux or Recoil)...

Alex Merced's Blog

MongoDB Relationships using Mongoose in NodeJS

Guide to Relating Data...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Guide to How to Implement Authorization in any language and framework

Having Users Login...

Alex Merced's Blog

Creating a GraphQL Based Habit Tracker with Hasura and React (GraphQL/Hasura 101)

GraphQL Made Easy...

Alex Merced's Blog

Developer Team Work Best Practices (Git, Agile/Scrum/Kanban, CI/CD)

How to be part of a developer team...

Alex Merced's Blog

My First React App - 2021 Intro to React

The Basics of React...

Alex Merced's Blog

Comparing React Router 5, 6, and React Location

For simple web development...

Alex Merced's Blog

Express Templating Cheatsheet

Sever Side Rendering for All the People!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Methods of Starting a Quick HTTP Server from the Command Line (alternatives to liveserver)

For simple web development...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to use Neo4j Graph Database in your Node Project (Express, Koa, Fastify, etc.)

Graph Databases are Cool...

Alex Merced's Blog

Building a Full-Stack Todo App with Typescript, NextJS and Mongo - 0 To Deploy

Trying out the hottest framework around...

Alex Merced's Blog

Pattern Matching in Javascript with alexmerced-patternmatcher

Like a Switch Statement on Steroids...

Alex Merced's Blog

Walkthrough - Deploy Anything with Nginx

Getting Data from an external API...

Alex Merced's Blog

Frontend Javascript Ajax/Http Request Guide

Getting Data from an external API...

Alex Merced's Blog

Basic Authentication with Node/Express and Mongo

A Beginning oriented dive into databases...

Alex Merced's Blog

The renaissance of server side rendering with Alpine and HTMX, Reactivity with Minimal JS

A Beginning oriented dive into databases...

Alex Merced's Blog

3 Ways to make API Requests in React (fetch/axios, merced-react-hooks, react-request)

Getting Data from an external API...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate Plain Vanilla DOM JS & JQuery Cheatsheet

A Beginning oriented dive into databases...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding Data and Databases 101

A Beginning oriented dive into databases...

Alex Merced's Blog

Basics of Building a CRUD API with Node (no framework)

Learning the Node HTTP/HTTPS library...

Alex Merced's Blog

Basics of Building a CRUD API with Typescript (NestJS and FoalTS)

Backend Frameworks with Typescript Support...

Alex Merced's Blog

Basics of Building a CRUD API with NodeJS - Express, Koa and Fastify

Learning REST conventions with Javascript...

Alex Merced's Blog

Basics of Building a CRUD API with Ruby Sinatra

Learning REST conventions with Ruby Sinatra...

Alex Merced's Blog

Basics of Building a CRUD API with Flask or FASTApi

Learning REST conventions with Python Frameworks...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Concepts of JAMStack 101

Speed, SEO and Security with JAMStack...

Alex Merced's Blog

Intro to SvelteKit

The new Svelte Based Application Builder...

Alex Merced's Blog

Basic Intro to NextJS

The next generation of Frontend Frameworks...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ruby Sinatra with Postgres using Sequel

Connecting a Sinatra App to a Database...

Alex Merced's Blog

Intro to Ruby Sinatra

Minimalist Ruby Web Framework...

Alex Merced's Blog

10 Programming Languages Side by Side (JS, Python, Ruby, PHP, GO, Rust, Dart, C Sharp, Java, Ballerina)

Learn Languages by see what's similar and different...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to Work with Masonite - Python Web Framework

Batteries Included Python Web Framework...

Alex Merced's Blog

FoalTS - Building a Typescript Based API

Making an API with this Typescript Based Framework...

Alex Merced's Blog

Python Flask 101 - Intro and API Building

Making an API with this Powerful Python Framework...

Alex Merced's Blog

Creating Deno Scripts Like Node NPM Scripts

Replicating One of Nodes Greatest Features...

Alex Merced's Blog

Creating an API with Deno (import maps, deps.ts, etc.)

Using that Cool New Javascript Runtime...

Alex Merced's Blog

Using Docker & Docker Compose to Create an Express/Neo4J Dev Environment(Intro to Graph Databases)

The Joys of Docker...

Alex Merced's Blog

Intro to Fastify & The Liquid Templating Language

Making Sure React Works...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Basics of React Testing With Jest

Making Sure React Works...

Alex Merced's Blog

React Conditional Rendering

React for Everyone...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate 2021 Reference for React Functional Components

React for Everyone...

Alex Merced's Blog

The Wonderful World of Javascript Bundlers

Yay! Javascript Build Tools....

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate Guide to Javascript Functions

What's your function?...

Alex Merced's Blog

SolidJS - React meets Svelte?

The new shiny frontend toy!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Pipenv - Yep, another post about Python Virtual Environments

Venv... the best way?...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate 2021 Guide to Deploying NodeJS (And DenoJS) Apps to Heroku

Heroku CLI, Continuous Integration and more...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate 2021 List of CSS Frameworks and Component Libraries for Angular, React, Vue and Svelte

Lots of them...

Alex Merced's Blog

merced-express - Express with a Ruby on Rails Feel

Express... on Rails......

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate Express & Mongo Reference

Building Backends with NodeJS...

Alex Merced's Blog

Rust & Rocket - Zero to Deploy

Building APIs with Rust...

Alex Merced's Blog

What is Batch and Streaming Data? (Data 101)

The fundamentals of data engineering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Creating APIs with Dart & Google Shelf - Zero to Deploy

Using the Fast Growing Dart Language...

Alex Merced's Blog

Intro to .Net 5 with VSCode - Zero to Deploy

Microsoft Goes Cross Platform...

Alex Merced's Blog

API With Java Spring & VSCode, from zero to deploy

Using Javas Most Popular Framework...

Alex Merced's Blog

Intro to Express, Templating and API's (EJS, Handlebars, Mustache, Pug)

Tales of PHP's Demise are Exaggerated...

Alex Merced's Blog

API With GO Buffalo, from zero to deploy

Buffalo, The Rails of the Go World...

Alex Merced's Blog

Hello World - Laravel 101 (From Start to Deploy)

Tales of PHP's Demise are Exaggerated...

Alex Merced's Blog

More on Python Virtual Environments

Using Pythons Built in venv module...

Alex Merced's Blog

Django Rest API without DjangoRestFramework

In case you were wondering...

Alex Merced's Blog

Chart of Backend Web Frameworks 2021

Build your application or microservice...

Alex Merced's Blog

Many Useful Javascript Tricks

Upping Your Javascript Gains...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding Postgres on Linux

The Little Things that May not be obvious...

Alex Merced's Blog

What is a Makefile and how do I use them?

Automating all the things...

Alex Merced's Blog

Go, Rust and C++ Side by Side

Learn All The Things...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding Node Streams with Https.get

Learn How to use Streams...

Alex Merced's Blog

Javascript Basic Reference

Quickly find what you need...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate Command Line Reference 2021 - Bash, Git, Node, Python, Ruby, PHP

All the commands you'll need all the time...

Alex Merced's Blog

Learn Python, PHP, Ruby and Javascript in one Blog Post

Be the Polyglot you know you can be!...

Alex Merced's Blog

A Tale of Memory and the Garbage Collector

The Stack, The Heap, and Memory Management...

Alex Merced's Blog

Python Virtual Environment 101

Understanding that Pesky Virtual Environment Thing...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding Dependency Injection

What a Fancy Word...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to use Netlify Cloud Functions

Your First Cloud Function...

Alex Merced's Blog

How to use Vercel Cloud Functions

Your First Cloud Function...

Alex Merced's Blog

Cloud Functions - Server-Side Code On Demand

Why you should embrace serverless tech...

Alex Merced's Blog

Where Does My Code Run? - Compilers, Interpreters, Transpilers and Virtual Machines

Making Code Happen...

Alex Merced's Blog

Tips for Aspiring Developers

Good Advice...

Alex Merced's Blog

Creating a Bosque Programming Language Dev Environment in 2021

Microsoft Exeperimental Language...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding and Using Environment Variables in React

Learning How to hide Data...

Alex Merced's Blog

Intro to PHP

Learn the Pre-Hypertext Processor Language...

Alex Merced's Blog

React Data Flow - Understanding State and Props

Learn the Pre-Hypertext Processor Language...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding React Router

Learn the Pre-Hypertext Processor Language...

Alex Merced's Blog

Intro to Building Backend Servers with KOAjs

Building a Web Server with Node and KOA...

Alex Merced's Blog

Deploying React, Angular, Svelte and Vue to Netlify & Vercel

Getting Your Project Online...

Alex Merced's Blog

Big List of Hosted Headless CMS Providers with Free or Developer Tier in 2021

Get Your JAM Stack ON...

Alex Merced's Blog

Git - A Guide to Understanding and Using Git

All The Commands in Words that Make Sense...

Alex Merced's Blog

Git/Github - Making the Switch from Master to Main

Getting with the times...

Alex Merced's Blog

Deep Dive on Javascript Tooling (Bundlers, Linters, Oh MY!)

Node, ESLint, Babel, Bundlers...

Alex Merced's Blog

React 101 - Basic JSON Blog from 0 to deployment

A Simple Build to Learn React...

Alex Merced's Blog

5 Cool Things You Can Do In React

Cool React Tips...

Alex Merced's Blog

Guide to Becoming a Developer in 2021

Step by Step Guide and Advice...

Alex Merced's Blog

EZComponent -Open Source Frontend Framework using Web Components

Component Based Frontend Framework...

Alex Merced's Blog

Getting Started Programming Ballerina 101

Web Application Architecture...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding MVC (Models - Views - Controllers)

Web Application Architecture...

Alex Merced's Blog

Go/Golang 101 - The Syntax and Basics

A Fun Language for Fast Compiled Apps...

Alex Merced's Blog

Rust 101 - The Syntax and Basics

A Fun Language for Fast Compiled Apps...

Alex Merced's Blog

Getting Started with Python Web Framework, FastAPI

The New Fast Web Framework in Python...

Alex Merced's Blog

Javascript - Writing Map as a Recursive Function

Thinking Recursively...

Alex Merced's Blog

In-Depth Guide on Understanding Deploying Web Apps

Servers, Ports and Environmental Variables oh my...

Alex Merced's Blog

Create Your Dev Portfolio with this Gatsby Template

Template designed for Dev Portfolios...

Alex Merced's Blog

Fundamentals of Client Side Javascript

The Building Blocks of Client-Side Javascript Master...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate CSS Reference

CSS All the Things!...

Alex Merced's Blog

React - Why use TaskRunner over Redux, useReducer

A State Management Alternative...

Alex Merced's Blog

Svelte after Sapper - The Svelte Ecosystem

Enterprise level frontend framework...

Alex Merced's Blog

Creating a Portfolio/Blog with Angular/Agility CMS

An Introductory Angular Tutorial...

Alex Merced's Blog

Delivering JSON Data with Netlify

Using Netlify to Deliver Static JSON...

Alex Merced's Blog

Building a Blog with Agility Headless CMS

Using Headless CMS's...

Alex Merced's Blog

Web Component Libraries

Libraries of Pre-Built Web Components...

Alex Merced's Blog

Authorization and Authentication in Concept

Understand JWT, Sessions and Bcrypt...

Alex Merced's Blog

Creating a Gatsby or NextJS Markdown Blog

Using merced-spinup templates...

Alex Merced's Blog

6 JS Object Types You May Not Have Used

Getting Advanced with Javascript...

Alex Merced's Blog

Tutorial - Writing Your First GraphQL API

An Alternative to RESTFul API...

Alex Merced's Blog

1 Backend, 5 Frontends - Todo List with Rails, React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, and jQuery

Same app... different frontend frameworks...

Alex Merced's Blog

Konjection - ORM Helper using Knex and Objection

Connect and Setup Your Models with Ease...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ruby on Rails Tutorial - Heroku API Deployment

Deploy a Full Crud API Quickly!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ruby on Rails Tutorial - Many to Many Relationships

How to create a many to many relationship...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ruby vs Javascript in Several Images

Learn Ruby through Javascript...

Alex Merced's Blog

merced-react-hooks => Application State, LocalStorage, Lifecycle

Utility Hooks Library for React...

Alex Merced's Blog

Making Framework Agnostic Web Components with StencilJS

Ionics Component Creation Tool...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ruby on Rails Reference - CLI Commands, Bundler, Macros

All You need to know to be productive in Rails...

Alex Merced's Blog

npx make-fullstack-app - Scaffolding your back and frontend

One Project, Two Apps, One Command...

Alex Merced's Blog

Full Crud Mongo/Express API in One Line with MongoRester

Scaffolding Mongo/Express APIs with ease...

Alex Merced's Blog

Understanding and Solving Cors Errors

Allowing Cross-Origin API Requests...

Alex Merced's Blog

Axios, Fetch and other useful images!

Javascript in Review...

Alex Merced's Blog

Create Your Next Microservice with Merver!

NodeJS Micro-Web Framework...

Alex Merced's Blog

Using mutils to supercharge arrays!

Arrays with superpowers!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Mongo, Mongoose and Express Reference

Queries and Endpoints oh my!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Rollout Application Level State Quickly with useDataStore

Context, Reducers and Hooks, yes!...

Alex Merced's Blog

npx create-react-loaded supercharged react

Router, GlobalState, Sass and more!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Javascript Callback Array Methods

Map, Reduce, Some, Every, Filter, Find, FindIndex...

Alex Merced's Blog

Intro to Express

Creating a Backend Server...

Alex Merced's Blog

React Pro Tips in Several Images

Super Charge Your React Code...

Alex Merced's Blog

More Merced-Spinup Templates

Gulp, Express and React!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Learning Svelte 101

Cybernetically Enhanced Web Apps!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Typescript 101 - Typing, Interfaces and Enums oh MY!

Super charging Javascript Scalability...

Alex Merced's Blog

Writing Javascript Promises

Under the Hood of Asynchronous Javascript...

Alex Merced's Blog

Big List of Online Places to Code/Prototype

Code on the Go...

Alex Merced's Blog

React Cheat Sheet

Props, State, Forms, Classes, Functions...

Alex Merced's Blog

React in Concept - The Terms and Idea

Props, State, Forms, Classes, Functions...

Alex Merced's Blog

React Hooks Basics Reference

useEffect, useState, UseReducer and more!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Passing Data Between Components in Vue

Props, Queries and Events oh my!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Spin-up your next project with merced-spinup

Templates for days...

Alex Merced's Blog

Mongoose, Connecting to Mongo via Javascript

Documents, Collections and Databases oh my!...

Alex Merced's Blog

Promises 101 and Fetch, Axios and $.ajax

Asynchronous Javascript in Nutshell...

Alex Merced's Blog

Building Your Coder/Developer Brand

Creating the Demand For You...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate jQuery/Plain Vanilla JS DOM Reference

The Basics of one of the most popular libraries ever...

Alex Merced's Blog

Javascript Events - In the Browser and Node

A Comprehensive Guide to Javascript Events...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate Basic Coder Reference (Bash, Git, VSCode, Nodejs, more)

The Basics We Should all know...

Alex Merced's Blog

Svelte - The New Kids on the Frontend Framework Block

Compiling based frontend framework...

Alex Merced's Blog

Web Components Part 3 - Lifecycle Functions

Built in functions that run at certain points...

Alex Merced's Blog

Guide to Free/Cheap Deployment Options 2020

Quality, Fast, Deployment for your static or full stack site....

Alex Merced's Blog

Ultimate Django Reference (Deployment, Rest API, Commands, .env)

A one stop shop for many of the things you'll have to look up a lot...

Alex Merced's Blog

Web Components Part 2 - Styling and Slots

Making Pretty and Flexible Components...

Alex Merced's Blog

Web Components Part 1 - The Basics

Creating, ShadowDOM...

Alex Merced's Blog

RenderBlocks

Beginners Tutorial...

Alex Merced's Blog

mBlocks - Frontend UI Library

Beginners Tutorial...

Alex Merced's Blog

MercedUI - Web Components with Super Powers

Beginners Tutorial...

Alex Merced's Blog

Intro to Angular 9 Tutorial

Enterprise level frontend framework...

Alex Merced's Blog

AMPonent, Webcomponent Building Library

Building Reactive and Styling UI Components...

Alex Merced's Blog

Frontend CRUD with Plain Vanilla JS

A Basic Exploration of Frontend DOM Manipulation...

Alex Merced's Blog

React 101 Tutorial

Basics of How React Works...

Alex Merced's Blog

Ruby on Rails API with JWT Auth Tutorial

Creating a Ruby on Rails API with Auth...

Alex Merced's Blog

Hello World in Vue

Firs Blog Post and Vue Tutorial...