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In 2015 I spent a lot of time in Tableau and Tableau Public. I did some makeover Mondays. Very excited and passionate about the tool. However, I was repeatedly frustrated trying to get data into Tableau. As a hobbyist Data Geek, I couldn’t afford Altova, Mulesoft or Alteryx. I tried Pentaho Kettle, but the community version was just too buggy.

This frustration (and a Christmas gift of a Raspberry Pi) lead me down the road to learn Python. Inarguably a life-changing decision. My fascination with Python caused me to slowly lose interest in Tableau, plus I couldn’t use it at work. I ended up not renewing my license and put it on the list of stuff I would like to return to if I could.

Now 3 years later, we are talking about Tableau for work. Today I downloaded a trial version and installed it on the one machine in the house with Windows 10. Combine a few years of not using it, a visual redesign and 2 full version bumps, it is like starting over. Even a modest comparison of 2 data elements took me nearly an hour.

So in light of everything else I am digging in to, do I have the headspace to relearn it? Hope so.

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Written on February 4, 2018