Hello, I am Waylon Walker.

I am a Data Scientist from Illinois. I have a passion for learning and teaching others.

I love what I do, and am constantly honing my craft. You can follow along with me, I try to document my journey the best I can by writing articles.

Open Source

In my spare time I like to take what I have learned to make things easier for others. I maintain 4 open source packages that you can find below.

Blog

2020

September 13

Chrome Extensions I use

There are many useful chrome extensions out there. I probably have way too many installed, here are four that I am currently using.

2020

August 13

Creating Reusable Bash Scripts

Bash is a language that is quite useful for automation no matter what language you write in. Bash can do so many powerful system-level tasks. Even if you are on windows these days you are likely to come across bash inside a cloud VM, Continuous Integration, or even inside of docker.

2020

August 11

Three things to Automate with Python using Pandas

Here are three things that I see my non programming counterparts doing every single day. These really sum up so much of what folks do within an office.

Chrome Extensions I use

There are many useful chrome extensions out there. I probably have way too many installed, here are four that I am currently using.

Chrome Extensions I use

Creating Reusable Bash Scripts

Three things to Automate with Python using Pandas

Here are three things that I see my non programming counterparts doing every single day. These really sum up so much of what folks do within an office.

Three things to Automate with Python using Pandas

How to Install miniconda on linux (from the command line only)

Installing miniconda from only the command line can be a bit of an intimidating task your first time. Lets walk through how to do it.

How to Install miniconda on linux (from the command line only)

How to crush amazing posts on DEV

Review of the git-auto-commit-action

It's a really cool GitHub action that will automatically commit files changed during the action. I was using this to render a new readme based on a template.

Review of the git-auto-commit-action

Black Tech Pipeline

I was particularly inspired by @chantastic episode 103 of the react podcast with @ParissAthena. They spoke about the black tech pipeline as well as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Pariss is quite an inspiration. She has done so much work to create a better place for POC in tech. I like that not only is she helping them get jobs but acting as a mentor for their first few months on the job to make sure that they are able to find their place and fit in.

Black Tech Pipeline

What's New in Kedro 0.16.4

If we take a look at the release notes I see one **major** feature improvement on the list, auto-discovery of hooks.

What's New in Kedro 0.16.4

Integration testing with Python, TestProject.io, and GitHub Actions

As I continue to build out https://waylonwalker.com/ I sometimes run into some errors that are not caught becuase I do not have good testing implemented. I want to explore some integration testing options using GitHub actions.

Integration testing with Python, TestProject.io, and GitHub Actions

🐍 Practice Python Online

When learning a new skill it's important to practice along the way. In order for me to show up to practice I need to make it easy to show up. An easy way to show up to practice with python is to use an online repl. With these you can try out something quick. Sometimes I see snippets from blogs or tweets and I need to try the out for myself to really understand.

🐍 Practice Python Online

Refactoring your blog urls

Edit On GitHub

I recently added a button to my blog, and subsequently my posts on [DEV.to](https://dev.to/waylonwalker). It's the best thing that I have done for it in a while.

Edit On GitHub

Why use a cms

When first learning to code its very common to hard code everything right into the code. This happens with most folks in just about any language. Whether its html or markdown for front end content, or even hardcoding parameters in our backend languages like python, or node.js.

Why use a cms

🐍 Parsing RSS feeds with Python

I am looking into a way to replace my google reader experience that I had back in 2013 before google took it from us. I am starting by learning how to parse feeds with python, and without much previous knowledge it proved to be much easier than anticipated thanks to the `feedparser` library.

🐍 Parsing RSS feeds with Python

🙋‍♂️ Can Anyone Explain Twitter Cards to me?

Can someone explain how or why twitter cards render differently from device to device? I do understand that twitter cards a built from meta tags, the full list can be found in their

🙋‍♂️ Can Anyone Explain Twitter Cards to me?

🤓 What's on your GitHub Profile

Comment on the DEV.to thread to show off what is on your GitHub profile.

🤓 What's on your GitHub Profile

How I Built My GitHub Profile

SLIDES - understanding python *args and **kwargs

Python `*args` and `**kwargs` are super useful tools, that when used properly can make you code much simpler and easier to maintain. Large manual conversions from a dataset to function arguments can be packed and unpacked into lists or dictionaries. Beware though, this power **can** lead to some really unreadable/unusable code if done wrong.

SLIDES - understanding python *args and **kwargs

Gracefully adopt kedro, the catalog

How to find things in your kedro catalog

kedro 0.16.2 just dropped last week with a long-awaited feature... catalog search! I went as far as monkey patching this into each of my projects. I work jump between a few really big projects that have tons of datasets. Being able to quickly search for what I need is so useful.

How to find things in your kedro catalog

My first eight years as a working professional.

This day 8 years ago I started my first day as a Mechanical Engineer. I am so grateful for this journey that I have been able to have. There is no way that I could have planned this journey from the beginning.

My first eight years as a working professional.

How Kedro handles your inputs

Passing inputs into kedro is a key concept. Understanding how it accepts a single catalog key as input is quite trivial that easily makes sense, but passing a list or dictionary of catalog entries can be a bit confusing.

How Kedro handles your inputs

Refactoring your blog urls

I just did a quick refactoring of my JAMStack blog urls. Some didn't fit with my style, some had `_` that I wanted to switch to `-`, and others were rediculously long. I've been using forestry as my CMS, I write many of my posts there, and sometimes it picks some crazy file names (based on my titles). It was time to refactor.

Refactoring your blog urls

Master No More

It's been a long time coming. We use some very harsh language within tech so much sometimes that we become numb to it. It's time to do my very small part in this movement and purge this language from my active repos starting with this blog right here.

Master No More

understanding python *args and **kwargs

Building kedro.dev

This is my journey to building up the community page.

Building kedro.dev

pre-commit is awesome

I recently discovered the ✨ awesomeness that is pre-commit. I steered away from it for so long because it seemed like a big daunting thing to set up, but really it's easy. It will automatically run checks for you. In some cases, it will even automatically fix them for you. Out of the box, it will do things like automatically trim extra whitespace, fix file endings, and ensure file sizes are not too large for git.

pre-commit is awesome

Kedro Static Viz 0.3.0 is out with Hooks Support

kedro-static-viz is out with support for the newly released hooks feature. This means that you can have `kedro-static-viz` automatically deploy a full gatsby site `before_pipeline_run` keeping your visualization always up to date.

Kedro Static Viz 0.3.0 is out with Hooks Support

Create Configurable Kedro Hooks

There are two main ways to create kedro hooks, with modules and classes. Each one still uses the same verbiage as the function/method names. Class hooks seem a bit special as they give you a way to configure them so that they are a bit more generally useful.

Create Configurable Kedro Hooks

Brainstorming Kedro Hooks

This post is a 🧠 branstorming work in progress, I will likely use it as a storage location/brain dump of hook ideas.

Brainstorming Kedro Hooks

How to get Dev Comments from an article Url

I want to incorporate some of the wonderful comments, 💕, 🦄, and 🔖's that I have been getting on dev.to on my website. I have dabbled once or twice with no avail this time I am taking notes on my journey, so follow along and let's get there together. By the end of this post, I will have a way to get comments from posts on the client-side thanks to the wonderfully open dev.to API.

How to get Dev Comments from an article Url

Thanks For Subscribing

Four github actions for your website

GitHub actions can give you confidence that your site is up and running, with the latests JavaScript packages, does not have broken links, and can even take screenshots of what your website looks like on different screen sizes and operating systems.

Four github actions for your website

Create Custom Kedro Dataset

Kedro provides an efficient way to build out data catalogs with their yaml api. It allows you to be very declaritive about loading and saving your data. For the most part you just need to tell Kedro what connector to use and its filepath. When running Kedro takes care of all of the read/write, you just reference the catalog key.

Create Custom Kedro Dataset

Interrogate is a pretty awesome, brand new, cli for Python packages

dead simple docstring coverage for your python project

Interrogate is a pretty awesome, brand new, cli for Python packages

drawing ascii boxes

I always struggle to find a good reference of ascii characters. This is a compilation of my most wanted ascii characters.

drawing ascii boxes

creating the kedro-preflight hook

Kedro Hooks Intro - kedro hooks are an exciting upcoming feature of kedro `0.16.0`. They allow you to hook into `catalog_created`,`pipeline_run`, and `node_run`(nouns). With a `before`, or `after` (adjective). This really reminds me of reacts lifecycle hooks, that let you hook into various state of react web components. This is going to make kedro so extendable by the community. I am super pumped to see what the community is able to do with this ability.

creating the kedro-preflight hook

Maintianing multiple git remotes

📢 Announcing find-kedro

kedro is an amazing project that allows for super-fast prototyping of data pipelines, yet yielding production-ready pipelines. find-kedro enhances this experience by adding a pytest-like node discovery eliminating the need to bubble up pipelines through modules.

📢 Announcing find-kedro

Explicit vs Implicit Returns in Javascript

Often when reading through javascript examples you will find some arrow functions use parentheses `()` while others use braces `{}`. This key difference is that parentheses will implicitly return the last statement while braces require an explicit return statement. It is important to understand the difference between them because it is likely that you will find code examples of both and trying to edit code written differently than you're used to may have unintended consequences.

Explicit vs Implicit Returns in Javascript

TIL: Bind arguments to dynamically generated lambdas in python

This past week I had a really weird bug in my [kedro](http://kedro.readthedocs.io/) pipeline. For some reason data running through my pipeline was coming out completely made no sense, but if I manually request raw data outside of the pipeline it matched expectations.

TIL: Bind arguments to dynamically generated lambdas in python

Four Github Actions for Python

Variables names don't need their type

So often I see a variables `type()` inside of its name and it hurts me a little inside. Tell me I'm right or prove me wrong below.

Variables names don't need their type

Send Emails with GitHub Actions

One useful action that you can utilize no matter what content your repo has is sending email.

Send Emails with GitHub Actions

GitHub Actions Syntax

GitHub actions use YAML to configure your workflows. What gets ran, When it runs, What it runs on. Let's discuss YAML and the structure needed for GitHub actions.

GitHub Actions Syntax

What Are GitHub Actions

GitHub actions are an amazing tool that allows us to run code based on triggers inside of our repo. Their is a large and growing community of actions inside the marketplace to use with very little effort. Best of all they are free for public repositories, and private repos have a very generous free tier.

What Are GitHub Actions

Practice your craft

Today I learned `git diff feature..maino`

Sometimes we get a little `git add . && git commit -m "WIP"` happy and mistakenly commit something that we just cant figure out. This is a good way to figure out what the heck has changed on the current branch compared to any other branch.

Today I learned `git diff feature..maino`

Create New Kedro Project

Getting up and going with a brand new [kedro](kedro.readthedocs.io) project is super simple, thanks to the help of the `kedro new` command. The ability to add an example pipeline from the start makes it that much easier to get going and have a template to follow for your own projects.

Create New Kedro Project

What is YOUR Advice for New Data Scientists

Do You Hoist

Do you have any use cases that you use hoising? Why? It seems like a really cool feature in any language that uses it, but I dont really notice it in use.

Do You Hoist

Productive one on one

What is Kedro

Kedro is an open source data pipeline framework. It provides guardrails to set your project up right from the start without needing to know deeply how to setup your own python library for data pipelining. It includes really great ways to manipulate `catalogs` and `pipelines`. This article will cover the 10K view of kedro, future articles will dive deper into each one.

What is Kedro

Long variable names are good

Custom Scrollbar Design

Getting a custom scrollbar on your site makes it stand out a bit compared to the very plain stock one that are on most sites. This is how I set mine up on my gatsby site.

Custom Scrollbar Design

What is Refactoring

Don’t waste your time learning everything

Stick to what you know, and learn a little bit of something new every day.

Don’t waste your time learning everything

2020 waylonwalker.com rebrand

I documented the story of my 2020 waylonwalker.com redesign on my blog. This post walks through the tools and inspiration for the card design.

2020 waylonwalker.com rebrand

I just added react-headroom to my site

It was so easy to get a professional looking navbar with just 3 lines of code. This thing is so usable on mobile.

I just added react-headroom to my site

I finally fixed my Styled-Components in gatsby.js

automate your deploys

Should I switch to Zeit Now

Should I switch to Zeit Now. Netlify build times are starting to creep in.

Should I switch to Zeit Now

git push without setting upstream

git config --global push.default current

git push without setting upstream

simple click 2

Out of Space

Out of Space! How to remove 65 conda environments in one command.

Out of Space

Personal URL shortener with Netlify Redirects

simple click

Add helpful cli to your python libraries... All of them!

simple click

cmd.exe tips

RSS feed for your Gatsby Site

Add an rss feed to your Gatsby Site

RSS feed for your Gatsby Site

What is something that you recently learned that you wish you would have learned or understood earlier?

Supercharge Zsh Startup

I have been using oh-my-zsh successfully for about 2 years now. But lately my startup time has been really bothersome. It has grown to the point where it was taking about **5.5s** to startup a shell! This is ok if I am going to spend some time in here for awhile and do some work that benefits from all of the autocompletions, plugins, and shortcuts that oh-my-zsh brings. But to only jump in to run a handful of commands is infuriating.

Supercharge Zsh Startup