“Hello World!”
Here’s my obligatory nod as a developer to the tradition of novice programmers writing their first “Hello World!” program; a practice that dates back to the 1974 Bell Labs internal memorandum “Programming in C: A Tutorial” by Brian Kernighan. Nice one Wikipedia.
Two years into my post-doctoral career I decided it would be a good idea to learn to code. Other than using the C:\> prompt to get DOOM running on my old Windows PC or typing swear words into my Amiga when a disk failed to load, I had never used a command line interface (CLI) or written a line of code. Having now spent the last 9 years as a research scientist and over 3 years as a full-time data scientist programming in a variety of languages, I decided it would be a good idea to learn to write a blog.
My hope is that this blog will help newcomers to the world of programming and data science to some of the benefit of my experience, or perhaps teach more advanced users a useful tip or trick they’ve missed. As a research technician who once worked with me used to say “team work makes the dream work”. Wise words.
I am also hoping this exercise will help me to become a better and more reflective data scientist, increase my awareness of the needs of a non-expert audience, and help me to reinforce newly learned information or revise things I am a bit rusty on. Feel free to email with topic requests. “Teaching is the best way to learn” after all. No idea who said that.
“Look Out World!”
Source: istockphoto.com
So what will I be covering in the future? In a nutshell, all things data science!
My programming repertoire currently spans R (my usual weapon of choice), R Shiny, SQL, Git (the side-arm every developer should carry), BASh, a couple of flavours of Markdown, a bit of Python and a smidge of HTML and CSS. Short and full-length guided tutorials (with embedded code) in these languages will likely be a staple. I will cover common data science and programming problems, giving you the TL;DR and solutions to frequently encountered issues, things I get asked about a lot, or things that have stumped me in the past.
For those of you who want data science content but don’t necessarily want to program, I might even stray occasionally into the sordid world of data analysis in programs that use a graphical user interface (GUI) such as Excel, GraphPad Prism and Tableau. Or perhaps I will cover the slightly less abhorrent middle ground of dashboarding with Power BI and web apps developed with the likes of R Shiny.
I will also be doing the usual “bloggy” things like top ten best and worst lists, reviews of learning resources and reflective pieces. If there’s anything you want me to cover, give me a shout!
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed the article and that it helps you to get a job done more quickly or inspires you to further your data science journey. Please do let me know if there’s anything you want me to cover in future posts.
Happy Data Analysis!
Disclaimer: All views expressed on this site are exclusively my own and do not represent the opinions of any entity whatsoever with which I have been, am now or will be affiliated.