Re: Looking for an online mentor

On 12/08/2016 04:47 PM, Metare Solve wrote:
> I'll check out the django girls, thanks. There's also a group of women
> coders in DC who hold a lot of trainings and events. I'll see if they
> have a level I python coming up.
>
> You made me think about something about the GUI's: In my old job I used
> alteryx because we were working with datasets from 20M-250M. When I got
> laid off, I lost access to alteryx (unless I want to get a free trial).
> I asked a guy who's pretty familiar with my skillset what I should be
> using, R? He said to look for an open source gui/alteryx alternative. I
> found one called KNIME that I like a lot.

R is very much a viable language for statistical analysis, FYI, Python
has binding to R, in other words you can use Python to work with R.
Though if you go that route I would suggest Pandas:

http://pandas.pydata.org/

>
> But, what I'm gathering is, you think this is a crutch too. Will Python
> enable me to do the same things that I do with that kind of big data
> processing program? Should I be aiming for that as the ultimate rather
> than "mastering" KNIME (or whatever, just looking to design my
> curriculum). At my old job when I asked the same guy about SQL and how
> some of the coding bits we did in the tool configuration looked like
> SQL, he said alteryx is SQL on crack.
>
> I need SOMETHING to use for analysis for the tests I'm going to have to
> take when I job hunt so I'm exploring KNIME right now and doing the data
> manipulation into what I'd do in access for analysis. I know, I need
> stats too. You were educated as a biologist? I was educated as a
> pianist, writer, and historian, lol. I have a lot to learn.

There is nothing wrong with GUI's per se, it is just that you often are
constrained by whatever tools the developers provide. They are good way
to start though, especially if they give you the ability to see what
they are passing to the datasource. Then you can learn as you work.

>
> However, we're veering away from postgres, which may not be appropriate
> on the forum. I'd like to continue the conversation, though.

Hey, if gets you using Postgres all is good.

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com