As a software developer, I’m used to being given tough problems and I’m not shy about building custom solutions from scratch to solve them. However, this is not always necessary. I recently learned that taking a step back and considering simpler solutions is always worthwhile.

This week, I was tasked with gathering and analyzing some data at my job. The task involved generating a couple of thousand data-points and examining their spread. The first part was easy, and accomplished in a couple of hours. What happened next was interesting though. Continue reading →