Ivaylo Pavlov

I blog about interesting tech, programming and finance in real life.

Describe Your Settings

We live in an unprecedented era of customizability of physical goods and services. One problem that still appears relatively unsolved…

2 years ago

Introduction to Apache Kafka

My next instalment on distributed systems after Elasticsearch and Redis is  Apache Kafka. The intended audience, as usual, is absolute beginners…

3 years ago

Compiled vs interpreted programming languages

On my quest to make shorter videos on programming fundamentals, I'm kicking this initiative with a video explaining the mechanics…

3 years ago

Charting Apple Health data in Grafana

One of the most interesting datasets I have is my own Apple Health data, which I've always liked playing with. Some…

3 years ago

How Video Streaming Works

After a month and half of making, in this 3-part series I go over the How Video Streaming Works, if…

3 years ago

Embracing Video Production

People often ask me why do I blog and how much time do I spend doing it? I often reply…

3 years ago

Windows File Explorer Tips & Tricks

Recently, I've noticed a lot of people (novices and experienced developers) are not using even the popular shortcuts in Windows…

3 years ago

Setting up GraphQL for an SQL database in Python

In this post we'll explore what is GraphQL and when it makes sense to use it. We'll map an existing…

3 years ago

Setting up Visual Studio Code for Web Development

This setup guide is intended for people starting up web development and some of the best tips & tricks when…

4 years ago

Building a Pong Game with P5 and ReactJS

It’s been a while since I last wrote a blog post, let alone a one building a new tiny game.…

4 years ago

Redis: What, Why, How

I've received a very positive feedback after the Elasticsearch presentation, available here. It's been almost exactly a year, since I…

4 years ago

Setting up Windows Terminal, WSL and Oh-my-Zsh

Since writing Setting up Oh-my-Zsh, I’ve levelled up in terms of shell usage and customization. I’ve also switched to Windows…

4 years ago

The Value in Legacy Code

I’ve been contemplating recently if there is value in legacy code and if so, what is it? It's the result…

4 years ago

Building a Minesweeper Game using React Hooks

I was looking for a project to improve my knowledge of the most significant ReactJS feature in recent time -…

4 years ago

Personal Spotify Music Trend Analysis

I was curious to see if over time the type of music I listen to has changed. Have I started…

4 years ago

WebSummit 2019 Takeaways

This year during 4-8th November 2019 in Lisbon, Portugal, I had the pleasure of attending the WebSummit Conference. To my…

4 years ago

From Coder to Software Engineer [Part IV]

Welcome to Part IV of the series. If this is your first encounter with this collection of articles, it might…

5 years ago

Modern Web Engineering & Micro Frontends

Let me start with a question, how many software engineers do you know that enjoy Frontend development? One question has…

5 years ago

Live streaming to ReactJS with Websockets

After the success of the post “Building a Python REST API with Flask”, a worthy follow up is how to…

5 years ago

Python 3 Features Worth Mentioning

The entire software engineering community has focused on converting their Python 2.7 code to Python 3. From Jan 1st 2020,…

5 years ago

Why are Markets Efficiently Irrational

I often get asked why markets behave the way they do. If I had an exact answer to this question,…

5 years ago

PyCon Cleveland 2019 Takeaways

For the first time ever, I attended the Python Software Foundation's PyCon Conference in Cleveland, USA. I was nothing short…

5 years ago

Introduction to Apache Lucene & Elasticsearch

In the past two or so months, I've immersed myself in the world of Apache Lucene and Elasticsearch. I wanted…

5 years ago

Building a Python REST API with Flask

What is a REST API? It stands for REpresentational State Transfer. This means each unique URL is a representation of…

5 years ago

Introduction to Technical Analysis in 5 Foundational Books

If you are interested in Technical Analysis of Financial Markets, the below books are the ones I can recommend as…

5 years ago

From Coder to Software Engineer [Part III]

Welcome to Part III of the coder to software engineer series. You might be interested in reading the first two…

5 years ago

Our Ownershipless Future

It's not once I've reiterated that predictions are a loser's game. I don't expect this to be any different here.…

5 years ago

Backtracking Algorithms & The Sudoku Game

If you just want to play the Sudoku game, it's available here: sudoku.ivaylopavlov.com I was wondering what game to make…

5 years ago

Modern Software Development in 5 Amazing Books

This post is an evolution of Introduction to Computer Science in 5 Amazing Books. You will see a skew towards…

6 years ago

JavaScript is Eating The World

There is no other language that divides the software development community today as much as JavaScript does. It's a language…

6 years ago

Investment Fund Metrics & Their Pitfalls

Originally this post was about to be explaining all investment fund types and their differences so I created the diagram…

6 years ago

The Race to Developer 5.0

I often like to contemplate on what professions will the future hold. In 10 years time, we'll definitely have jobs…

6 years ago

Building a Peg Solitaire Game

If you want to play the game - Ivo Peg Solitaire, it's available here: http://pegsolitaire.ivaylopavlov.com On my journey to try out…

6 years ago

From Coder to Software Engineer [Part II]

This is the continuation of the discoveries I've made since switching from coding as a hobby to a profession.  If…

6 years ago

From Coder to Software Engineer [Part I]

When I made the switch from finance to software development, I was doing mostly scripting on small projects, nothing major.…

6 years ago

5 Articles I Wish I’ve Written

Every once in a while I come upon an article or a blog post that I say to my self…

6 years ago

The Smart Home Quest

As a person who's always been keen on trying the latest gadgets. In the past 2 years I discovered the…

6 years ago

Digital Audio Primer

The above image is created by Jamie Tate from Rukkus Room and I stumbled upon it randomly on the web. It…

7 years ago

Fundamental vs Technical Analysis

This is by far the most requested post I've had from friends. As a person who has been exposed to…

7 years ago

Building a Tetris Game

If you want to play the end game, It's available on Desktop only http://tetris.ivaylopavlov.com It's also playable from Xbox and…

7 years ago

My top 5 favorite TED talks

I'm a big fan of TED Talks. There's a little bit of everything for everyone. Below are the 5 talks…

7 years ago

Email is dead, long live the push notifications

It was not long ago that email ruled the world. A technology invented in 1960s, in my opinion, reigned until…

7 years ago

What to look for in a Home Theatre System

I've set myself to write this Home Theatre Setup Guide, as there is a lot of information on home theatre…

7 years ago

Basic setup of Terminal Multiplexer (TMUX)

After setting up Oh-My-Zsh as out default shell, the natural flow, goes to set up a multi-screen environment. Nowadays, most…

7 years ago

Introduction to Computer Science in 5 Amazing Books

Starting up in Computer Science could be a scary experience for many, but there's nothing to be afraid of. Everybody…

7 years ago

Creating a Retro Nintendo with Raspberry Pi

Everything started when my flatmate, Stefan, wanted to play Battle City.  It's a very old game with tanks defending their…

7 years ago

Chart Your HealthKit Data in Jupyter Notebook

Let me start by saying I’m a visual learner, so I’ve always had an inclination towards UML graphs and charts.…

7 years ago

Practical Guide to Git: Part II

Part II, deserves a follow up XKCD comic. Creating a GitHub account and a Repository Before we proceed forward we'll need…

7 years ago

Practical Guide to Git: Part I

Let's start with a classic XKCD covering the situation. This is the first from a collection of posts of the…

7 years ago

Top 5 Books Every Finance Geek Should Read

As a finance geek, I've read quite a few books on the topic, below you will find the Top 5…

7 years ago