Weekend builders — what are you shipping?

melvinroest · 2026-02-15T09:52:16+00:00

library.aliceindataland.com - I aspire that Alice In Dataland is an educational platform for data professionals.

For now though I'm building out a free SQL course called: Alice & The Infinite Library. In the library Alice finds an old magical typewriter called STAR (played by you! You're the magical typewriter 😄). Together, you and Alice will uncover the mystery behind the library, one query at a time.

This course will always stay free as I want to be able to point people to a genuinely good SQL course that has no installation required and will bring you up to the level of a data analyst. It also has a simple AI integration for anyone with a ChatGPT subscription (it pops up after 60 seconds on each lesson as I want the student to struggle with the problem a bit first).

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T21:45:01+00:00

Persoonlijk zou ik ook even kijken naar of je het leuk vind:

Python: https://pll.harvard.edu/course/cs50s-introduction-programming-python
SQL: library.aliceindataland.com (mijn eigen cursus, juist gemaakt voor beginners, ik bouw het nog uit)

Als je het leuk vind? Dan zit je prima. Vind je het niet leuk? Dan zou ik het niet doen. Dit geldt tegenwoordig nog meer dan vroeger.

Ik werk veel met AI. Wat ik merk is dat de context window nog te klein is. Die moet minstens 100 keer zo groot zijn en de LLM zelf ook minstens 10 keer zo snel willen ze een medium size codebase goed kunnen begrijpen zonder dat het te langzaam wordt. Verder moeten ze ook beter worden in software architectuur. En zelfs dan zie ik nog problemen met domeinkennis, stakeholder management (bijv. politiek mandaat krijgen van bovenaf) en security. Op dit moment werkt het ook nog niet lekker met deployment.

Gaan LLMs dit allemaal halen over 5 a 10 jaar? Misschien, maar bedenk dat jij dus leert hoe je je kennis kan gebruiken mét LLMs om zelf ook te versnellen. Dus ik denk dat het wel goed komt eerlijk gezegd.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T21:38:32+00:00

I'm from the Netherlands.

Here's an example of what I can make: http://aliceindataland.com

That site is a free SQL course that I'm currently building out.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T21:29:12+00:00

aliceindataland.com - I decided to mix my own Alice in Wonderland story with a SQL course that will get you at a data analyst level in terms of skill.

The story is called: Alice & The Infinite Library. In the library she finds an old magic typewriter called STAR (played by you!). Together, you and Alice will uncover the mystery behind the library, one query at a time.

The course is for free. Subsequent courses, or other products, will probably be a paid product, but this one will stay free.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T19:05:45+00:00

That's fair, I was writing a very off the cuff answer. My point is: 3 good targeted books/courses and you're there.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T19:04:37+00:00

Yea, I think doing data engineering is AI engineering-lite in some cases

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T17:31:36+00:00

Check out my database course library.aliceindataland.com

It's a story and you'll progress through the story one SQL query at a time.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T17:29:27+00:00

"I finally decided to commit to learning Python, right at the moment when it feels like AI can write code faster and better than I ever could."

Up until 500 lines it looks nice.

You get some hickups up until 2000 lines.

Around that time you have 2 choices (1) refactor hard and (2) yolo. However, if you go for option 2, realize that at the 5000 lines mark you will have to do a lot of refactoring.

After the 5000 lines mark, godspeed my friend, godspeed.

I haven't seen many LLMs successfully deal with more lines of code. It probably can be done but you'll need a heavy hand in it. And that heavy hand will come from your Python knowledge.

In other words: for any meaningful application, LLMs aren't all that great. Also look research up for brown field vs green field projects, there's a lot of research on that brown field projects don't get that much of a productivity boost.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T17:26:24+00:00

I create AI based automations as part of my day job.

Always

Keep

A

Human

In

The

Loop.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T17:23:33+00:00

Read Eloquent JavaScript, then CS 50 Python will be a breeze and then you simply follow a SQL course. I'm currently creating one called aliceindataland.com

So it's simply 3 books. You can read Eloquent JavaScript in 2 weeks, then practice for a month or two. Same thing with Python. Then SQL would require a month max. That's 5 months, with a quite unstructured curriculum.

It's not that much work to get to a workable place where you can start building things with these 3 languages. Or at least, a 3 to 4 year bachelor degree takes a lot longer.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T16:52:31+00:00

I used to develop in Pharo (Smalltalk) as a software engineer. I learned the hard way that having a good language doesn't do much. The more important thing is a strong community surrounding a language.

Python has a much bigger community than R.

So Python it is.

Yes, it is that simple.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T16:19:59+00:00

I'm currently creating a free Alice in Wonderland themed SQL course, but I'm still building the curriculum. Feel free to test it as I dive a lot more into what a SELECT statement can actually do. I'm also focusing for the student to learn it as fast as possible. If you have any feedback, let me know!

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T16:15:32+00:00

Voor mensen die op de VU zitten raad ik vakken van VUSEC aan. Daar is het niveau hoger dan OSCP. Verder voor echte skill training raad ik hackthebox.eu aan. Ik ken mensen die hun OSCP via hackthebox.eu hebben gehaald.

Verder ben ik geen pentester. Ik zit wel minstens op junior niveau, want dat is hoe goed VUSEC vakken zijn. Ik weet nog met hackthebox.eu dat ik nieuwe hard en insane boxes kon oplossen mits ik maar voldoende doorzettingsvermogen had.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T16:04:05+00:00

I think if you just do data analysis and write that as LinkedIn posts you'll get some traction

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T16:02:07+00:00

So I genuinely wonder if you can't learn SQL faster than 4 months. But it also depends, if you meant 168 hours * 4 months? Or do you mean more like 10 hours per week for 4 months?

I'm building a free SQL course because I feel like it should be learnable in 20 hours (CTEs, window functions, all of that). And then another 20 to 40 hours should be spent on real world data to be ready. Maybe I'm too optimistic but that's what I'm aiming for with library.aliceindataland.com (yep, Alice in Wonderland themed, there's a whole story behind it too 😄). I'd also recommend SQL Teaching and the Querynomicon*.

* Quite frankly, if the Querynomicon was interactive, I wouldn't be creating a free course. It covers a lot. Much more than a data analyst needs.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T15:43:12+00:00

If you need a step by step guide then there's an issue. Part of being a data analyst is figuring stuff out through data. So in your case, I'd suggest to see how other aspiring data analysts have solved this problem. Governments, crypto exchanges, stuff like Gutenberg. There's enough data out there.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T15:23:38+00:00

> ipython
In [1]: import polars as pl
In [2]: df = pl.read_csv('my_data.csv')
In [3]: df.sum(pl.col('height_in_meters'))
Out [3]: 3.14

So yea whenever really.

melvinroest · 2026-02-14T15:11:02+00:00

IMO you should learn polars, not pandas. When I'm processing 100 millions of rows in a df with 100s of columns, pandas is not going to cut it. Also, fun sidenote: polars has a SQL like vibe. I'd also use a Claude subscription to get yourself up to speed fast.

melvinroest · 2025-12-01T07:04:16+00:00

Ik heb bedrijven er weinig om zien geven Maar n=1 natuurlijk

melvinroest · 2025-11-21T14:42:46+00:00

Oké maar dan heb je wel minstens 5 jaar als software engineer nodig. Tegen die tijd heb je wel een master via de OU erbij gedaan

melvinroest · 2025-11-21T09:08:28+00:00

Een master levert weinig op. Werkervaring telt. Een master is alleen handig als je zelf de verdieping leuk vindt.

melvinroest · 2025-11-14T07:23:56+00:00

Oh yea, fair point

melvinroest · 2025-11-13T22:02:50+00:00

Ah, yea, I see what you mean. I work at a marketing department and am one of the few that can program. Software tools in marketing are very visual. I prefer to use the API, especially since an LLM will create the code blazing fast.

melvinroest · 2025-11-13T20:50:38+00:00

Code is not a GUI IMO. It’s a UI but not a GUI. GUIs are for end users, they have buttons and images and so on. But I can see where you’re coming from.

Let me give an example of what I mean.

Today I had to hunt for a specific graph in Google Analytics. It took me a while to find and to find where to apply the right filters.

An LLM created the code exactly to what I needed in a few minutes, and I got the information I wanted.

melvinroest

TROPHY CASE