Sixtus Half-Marathon (Schliersee) 2019

Preslav Rachev in Running, Half-Marathon, Germany, Bavaria | 17 May, 2019
Today, I took part in the Sixtus Half-Marathon near lake Schliersee for the third time in a row. Unlike last year, this time I started with a completely different strategy - keep it cool and let everyone else pass by me during the first third of the race. Seeing everyone else’s backs can be demotivating and requires a lot of patience and training. After the first 5-6K, having realized that I was really the last of the HM group, I started slowly picking up the pace.

My Reasons to Consider Go Coming from Java

Preslav Rachev in Spring Boot, Java, Golang | 7 May, 2019
I hate listicles, and I am highly hoping that this doesn’t become one of them. Yet, I somehow felt the need to write down the reasons why I am giving Go a second (or maybe, third 🤔) chance. To the Java developers out there, searching for a new weapon of choice, I am hoping that this will give you a bit of perspective. This is not a description of Go-specific features.

Developer Tool Tip: DevDocs

Preslav Rachev in Tools, Tips, Docs | 3 May, 2019
Here is a handy developer tool tip for today: DevDocs As developers, we spend a large portion of our time, searching for the “name of the function abc that did thing xyz”. Not surprisingly, sites like StackOverflow have become so popular. Yet, SO answers are often full of additional information, and what we need most of the time is a simple search on top of the docs themselves. Years ago, I used a tool for macOS, called Dash.

Deploying a Native Go Binary on Heroku

Preslav Rachev in Golang, Heroku, Tips | 20 Apr, 2019
My company, KI labs recently held its first hackathon in our Munich office. My team and I went for a very cool mobile app idea that promotes healthy walking competitions among colleagues and friends. Though the app itself deserves a proper introduction, I will talk about it in a separate post. This time I will focus on one problem I experienced while working on the app’s backend part, written in Go.
image from Using Ephemeral Docker Containers as CLI Applications

Using Ephemeral Docker Containers as CLI Applications

Preslav Rachev in Programming, Docker, Python | 18 Mar, 2019
Docker containers have proven themselves extremely useful in allowing developers to sandbox environments and ease the deployment of services. Have a complicated service setup? No worries. Simply, describe the steps in a Dockerfile and you should be able to replicate the process on every host OS that has Docker support. When I said services, I bet that the first thing you thought about was HTTP servers, or some sort of persistent, always running processes that send or accept requests to such services.

Introducing DevNotes

Preslav Rachev in Blog | 9 Mar, 2019
With a few short micro-post exceptions, my blog has been relatively quiet over the past month. The reason for this is simple. I have devoted much of my writing resources of the past weeks into a new site. A wiki called DevNotes. That is right, I have started a separate writing project, parallel to my blog. Yet, before you start thinking that this is the end of the blog, don't worry.

My Baby Steps with Go

Preslav Rachev in Golang | 20 Feb, 2019
Last week, I made my first tentative foray into Go programming. My company uses Go in a couple of projects, but although I have heard many positive things about the language, so far I have tried to stay away from it. The mere thought that Go is a 21st Century version of C and has been explicitly designed from the start to not try to be much more than that, can make everyone coming from Kotlin and Swift pull a few hairs at first.

Kotlin ❤️ Data Science? (Part 1)

Preslav Rachev in Data Science, Kotlin, Programming, Meetup, Munich | 3 Feb, 2019
A few days ago, I was invited to give a talk at the Munich Kotlin Users Group meetup (check out my slides here) For quite some time, I have had an idea to promote Kotlin as the missing link between software engineering and Data Science. DuringKotlinConf 2018, I had the chance and the privilege to meet a couple of amazing people, whose talks only helped confirm my thoughts. Mathematical Modeling with Kotlin | Thomas Nield

Use Dotenv Files When Developing Your Python Apps

Preslav Rachev in Programming, Python, Tips | 9 Jan, 2019
Hard-coding configuration is bad. This is one of the things that newbie programmers learn quickly after they realize that have committed sensitive information to a public GitHub repository. And it happens so easily. Often, you are in the spur of the moment, wanting to test something locally, when you figure out that you need some API key in order for your app to work. Adding the key to the code takes a second, and is just as easy to forget when committing.
image from What I learned in 2018

What I learned in 2018

Preslav Rachev in Retrospection, 2 Cents | 31 Dec, 2018
It’s that time of the year again. The time when you make yourself a cup of coffee, and go through the events of the past years, searching for a sign that it has been worth it. And judging by the numbers alone, it seems like a very eventful year: In 2018, I: Got engaged Changed my job Started new new side projects Attended 4 conferences and countless meetups Had my own chance to present in front of an audience (twice) Visited 5 countries and met many new people Read 15 books Wrote nearly 30 blog posts Ran 626 km, and finished 4 half-marathons Made between 5,500 and 6,000 push-ups Wow, quite a year, heh?