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9 posts
March 11, 2026
Mike and Tommy tackle a mailbag question about submitting Fabric ideas, what makes a good idea stick, and where data engineering is headed next. Plus, Mike reveals he has 147 versions of Power BI Desktop downloaded.
February 4, 2026
AI is transforming data engineering in two major ways: democratizing who can build data pipelines and creating new skills around trusting and debugging AI systems.
January 28, 2026
Mike and Tommy dive into a listener mailbag question about connecting a local VS Code desktop to a remote Fabric Jupyter kernel — unpacking the tradeoffs of local vs. cloud development, custom environments, cost optimization, and why OneLake File Explorer might be the missing piece. Plus, AI-generated music as a metaphor for the future of data engineering.
January 2, 2026
Mike and Tommy revisit Dataflows Gen 2 after giving it a hard time for months — and the verdict? It's actually good now. New parallelization, modern query evaluation, and smarter pricing make it a real option again. Plus, the PBIR format admin setting and creative image visual tricks.
October 3, 2025
Mike and Tommy tackle the identity question: is Fabric a BI platform, a data engineering platform, or something else entirely? They discuss where Power BI fits in the bigger Fabric picture and whether BI professionals need to expand their skill sets. Plus, Copy Job and Dataflow Gen2 updates.
July 9, 2025
Mike and Tommy break down the Fabric June 2025 update with a rapid-fire draft of the features they’re most excited about. They also cover Copilot inline code completion in Fabric notebooks, shortcut transformations from files to Delta tables, and new data agent data-source instructions.
December 18, 2024
Mike, Tommy, and Seth talk about the rise of the notebook engineer in Fabric: why notebooks are becoming the default interface for data work, and what good notebook practices look like in real teams.
February 9, 2024
Most teams don't need a unicorn - they need clear responsibilities. In Ep. 292, Mike, Tommy, and Seth unpack why one person owning engineering, modeling, reporting, and governance becomes a bottleneck, and how to scale delivery without burnout.
September 27, 2023
Ep. 253 answers a mailbag question every org is about to face: will Microsoft Fabric’s bigger toolbox overwhelm business users—or can you introduce it without killing self-service momentum? Mike, Tommy, and Seth share practical rollout language, guardrails, and adoption patterns that keep Power BI approachable.