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No, at least in my understanding data scientists specialize in the analysis of data rather than the development of software. You'd hire a data scientist to look
by manfredo 8y ago
No, at least in my understanding data scientists specialize in the analysis of data rather than the development of software. You'd hire a data scientist to look for interesting patterns in data, or create machine learning models, and other data analysis tasks. These tasks may involve writing code, but it's usually specific to data analysis, often in R or Matlab or similar. A lot like how many people in the natural sciences pick up coding to enhance their capability, but the software writing is a means to an end.
I wouldn't hire a data scientist to build a web app (well, I would if he or she had the necessary knowledge and skills - the job title wouldn't be "data scientist" though). "Software developer" is much closer to "programmer".
- mr_toad 8y agoI think the point of the article was that it used to be more common back in the 60’s and 70’s for programmers to work on data problems. From basic stuff like census tabulation or designing file systems, to creating trigonometry or t-statistic tables, to AI. There was less specialisation, less of a divorce between programmers and users. There also seemed to be a conflation of computing and AI back then. Lisp was considered AI. And the early computing pioneers and theorists were strongly interested in AI, logic, and mathematics.