December 29, 2020 1 min read 174 words
Analytics Canon
There are definitive sources in every field. The founder wanted to write one for the Analytics space. Kimball comes to mind. There are also several related ideas that are not consolidated to one so…
Core Argument
There are definitive sources in every field. The founder wanted to write one for the Analytics space. Kimball comes to mind. There are also several related ideas that are not consolidated to one source:
- OLTP vs. OLAP
- Normalization (3NF)
- Narrow vs. Wide tables
Why It Matters
This is the earliest article in the batch (late 2020) and reveals the founder’s ambition: to create a canonical reference for analytics engineering. The Kimball reference is significant — Ralph Kimball’s dimensional modeling was the gold standard for data warehousing, but by 2020 the modern data stack was evolving past some of those patterns. The founder saw a gap: no single source consolidated the core concepts a modern analytics practitioner needs to know.
This ambition — to build a definitive reference — eventually evolved into the Ray Data Co newsletter (Sanity Check) and the broader content strategy. The specific topics listed (OLTP/OLAP, normalization, wide vs. narrow tables) remain foundational concepts in the field.
