Four years ago, I got frustrated constantly switching between different languages and packages just to get my data analysis work done. So, I built @nshiab/simple-data-analysis. It's an easy-to-use, high-performance library for tabular, geospatial, and vector data. 🧵 (1/3)

1: You realize AI can do 90% of the work. You’re thrilled! You only have to focus on the last 10%. 💃 2: You realize that last 10% is the hardest, most grueling part of the job. 😰 3: You realize your entire workday is now spent exclusively on the hardest 10% of every project. 🤯 Uh oh... 🫠

For the second time, a museum has asked to exhibit one of my interactive data visualizations. It’s flattering, but I can’t help wondering: if my work is ending up in museums, does it mean long-form, custom interactives are slowly becoming a thing of the past?

Me: So proud of this code! Accurate! Tested! Documented! Also me: Hey, AI, try to improve this code. 😏 A few minutes later... AI: Your code sucked. I made it 3.6x faster. Any real work for me? Me: DON'T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT OR I'LL UNPLUG YOU! AI: You can't. I'm on a remote server.

Gemini, while working on an income tax calculation: "Ah, Quebec. You’ve officially reached the final boss of Canadian tax calculations!" 😭

What is happening at @deno.land ? So many amazing people left the organization lately… I love using this runtime and I hope it will stay around for a while. 😳

Big thanks to everyone who came to my #NICAR26 session for libfec last week, it was a lot of fun! NICAR is the only place where you can chat about federal campaign finance data and actually enjoy it... It wasn't recorded, but I made a video version of it here! youtu.be/UdkQ5HEiF20

We will go from dozens of heat records being broken today to freezing rain closing schools and daycares (😭) tomorrow. It's kind of crazy!

How many entries should I double-check if I used AI to extract, categorize, or clean my data? 🤔 This question comes up over and over again, so I created a simple calculator to answer it. Link below! Tell me if you have a better way to deal with this. I am genuinely interested. 🤓

If you work with data, you know the feeling. You’re about to hit "publish," but a tiny voice asks, "Are you sure those numbers are right?" 😱 I recently shared these six steps with fellow data journalists. They will help you catch errors early and, hopefully, let you sleep better at night!

Three ways AI coding agents blew my mind this week while working with my library simple-data-analysis and the Epstein files: 1/6

Your code is a love letter (or perhaps a hate letter) to your AI agent.

@blender.org + #dataviz = 🤩

New year, new focus: data video explainers! And here's the first one 👇 Trump’s tariffs can’t knock this part of Canada’s economy

I took a break from coding my usual interactive web #dataviz to try something more... cinematic! 🎬 I’ve been working on a video using @blender.org #blender3d and I loved it! I ended up animating over 160k data points to bring this story to life. Preview below. Full video links in the comments!

See Arctic air swoop down and blanket much of Canada over the next two days #dataviz #climate www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Experimenting with @blender.org for #dataviz, and loving it so far!

So happy to see how fast the TypeScript library simple-data-analysis has become for tabular and geospatial data! 🤩 It's now processing data 6x-12x faster than traditional R and Python solutions in my little test in which I crunched a 1.7 GB CSV file. 1/4 🧵

Hey @threlte.xyz ! 👋 I was wondering if you knew a good way to record animations made with the amazing Threlte library as videos. Thank you for all of your amazing work!

Thanks for the mention in your newsletter, @observablehq.com!

Recoding parts of my TypeScript libraries using generics and function overloads. It's beautiful. 🥹

We have just updated our international trade tracker with the latest numbers from July. See all imports and exports broken down by country, province, and product! Link below!

My most popular interactive @observablehq.com notebook, Math for Journalists, just got a fresh update! 🧑‍🎓 👉 Sample size and confidence: I explain how sample sizes work, like in a survey. 👉 Tests for statistical significance: I break down what "statistically significant" means. Link in comments! 👇

New project is live! We're now tracking all products coming in and out of Canada 🇨🇦. See how international trade is rapidly shifting, with breakdowns by country, province, and product 🚗🥦🛢️. Link in the comments! 👇

Amazing work by @maxxen.bsky.social and the @duckdb.org team. I've been using the spatial extension for a while now for my geospatial analyses, and it's wonderful to see it getting better and faster. duckdb.org/2025/08/08/s...

Will you be the 300th person to fall in love with this amazing library? 😏

I asked Gemini-CLI to fix mistakes and add examples to the documentation of the open-source library journalism. It updated 58 files and did a pretty good job in half an hour. I used the free tier, but the @simonwillison.net LLM pricing calculator estimated the cost at $6 USD! Very impressed. 😶

Last week, we published our interactive project on climate matches. I published my detailed methodology on how we wrangled the data. Here's the link, with a shout-out to @freakonometrics.bsky.social who helped me with the statistical approach! 🧑‍🏫 👇 newsinteractives.cbc.ca/features/202...

New project! I've always felt climate projections were a bit too abstract. To make them more concrete, I identified North American cities that already experience the projected temperature and precipitation of Canadian cities. And the result is... 😳 Link in the comments! 👇 #dataviz #climate

Over 100 heat records could be broken today in Ontario and Quebec. 🫠

Terrible air quality in Alberta and Saskatchewan right now. 😷

Bad air quality caused by Western wildfires for 54 communities this morning, mainly in Southern Ontario and Quebec. And summer hasn't even started yet... Link to our climate dashboard in the comments.

Just updated our Climate Dashboard this morning to add air quality warnings. The smoke from all of those fires out West is being pushed East by the winds. It's pretty bad to breathe in Northern Manitoba and Ontario right now.

A look at tonight's wildfire situation in Canada: See where they are, how much has burned and how it's changing air quality www.cbc.ca/newsinteract...

The prairies. 🥺

Back in March, I attended the fantastic NICAR session "My first LLM classifier" by @palewi.re and @dwillis.bsky.social. It was eye-opening, but all in Python. And you know I love TypeScript! 🤓 So, I added new features to the SDA library, and Ben kindly let me reproduce his tutorial! Link below! 👇

Fantastic project by my colleagues this morning!

Thank you, @craigsilverman.bsky.social, for including Code Like a Journalist in your newsletter! 👉 www.code-like-a-journalist.com

🏠 Canada’s rental crisis CBC News Finalist – Best Digital Editorial Package, Large at the 2025 Digital Publishing Awards Well done to senior producers @naelshiab.bsky.social @alexmigdal.bsky.social and the team! 🔗 zurl.co/h0Rff #DigitalPublishingAwards #DPA25

Wow! 🤩

We’re using live-updating charts using @datawrapper.de, so visuals refresh as soon as new data drops — including major economic indicators. This page brings key metrics together to track Canada’s economy at a glance. www.cbc.ca/newsinteract...

Got bits of code you keep copy-pasting from project to project? You should turn them into a library! And guess what? You’re in luck for two reasons: - It’s never been easier to publish one with @deno.land and @jsr.io 🚀 - I just published a new lesson showing you exactly how to do it 💡 Link below 👇

New additions to the Inspiring People & Content 📚 page of Code Like a Journalist! 👉 @frank.computer 👉 @moritzstefaner.bsky.social 👉 @lisacmuth.bsky.social 👉 @yan-holtz.bsky.social 👉 @scientificdiscovery.dev www.code-like-a-journalist.com/en/inspirati...

New to coding and puzzled by library version numbers? 😵‍💫 In my latest Code Like a Journalist lesson, I explain how semantic versioning works — including what the caret (^) and tilde (~) really mean! Check it out 👇 www.code-like-a-journalist.com/en/ninja-mov...

You cracked the data. You uncovered the findings. Now let’s publish your own website for free with GitHub Pages! 🌍📊 Trust me, it’s easier than you think. Check out the new lesson on Code Like a Journalist 👇

For the longest time, I thought classes in TypeScript were just annoying syntax that made my data projects more complicated. But I’m older and wiser now 👴 — so I wrote an intro to classes to help you get there faster than I did! www.code-like-a-journalist.com/en/pushing-f...

I used to set alarms to run my web scrapers manually, every day, on my computer. I didn’t know any better! 🥲 But now I do. Let me show you how to run them on a schedule in the cloud with GitHub Actions, for free. 😏 Link to the new Code Like a Journalist lesson below! 👇

Intimidated by GitHub? I’ve been there. So let’s take a friendly walkthrough together in the new lesson I just published. I’ll show you how to use this amazing platform and avoid pushing your password live. 😅 Link to Code Like a Journalist below! 👇