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As a data scientists who considers himself moderately good with the pydata library set, I realized the other day if you took those 5 libraries away from me, I'm

As a data scientists who considers himself moderately good with the pydata library set, I realized the other day if you took those 5 libraries away from me, I'm not sure I have that much to offer in terms of my programming abilities. I don't necessarily feel bad about that, although it did give me pause.

simonh 8y ago
I’ve known people who built lucrative careers on expertise in specialised technologies, and others who’s entire careers disappeared because they were too specialised and the technology got deprecated. You might be fine, but I’d definitely recommend diversifying your skill set a bit. Being a generalist has served me well.
- SZJX 8y ago
  I would say every capable programmer should be a "generalist" in a sense and be able to transfer their skills with relatively little effort. If they can't, they are not really that good at the abstract concepts. Still this doesn't prevent one from focusing more and specializing more on one field/language that they love and be as familiar with it as possible.
jriot 8y ago
As a data scientist myself, I learned to write code that utilized arrays and matrices - from the most basic library. From cleaning to analysis to machine learning (I supposed numpy was used for ML). Is this the most correct manner to write code? I don't know but learning to do DS without specific Python libraries has improved my coding ability. Aside from being able to read in different data formats I believe I could do a fair portion of my work in C.
tomrod 8y ago
I came in to the pydata library after extended time in Matlab/Octave. Learning there first was terrible for programming basics (e.g. polymorphism) but was excellent for ensuring I knew what a given algorithm does/should do. I highly recommend spending some time in C/C++, Go, or Julia to pydata-first folks that ask.
autokad 8y ago
the libraries have grown nicely over the years, though I am surprised they still lack some basic stuff. why in 2019 is there no good way to visualize a decision tree? having to install, configure, and get working graphviz feels very hoaky. I prefer python, but R still does some things really well that the python libraries are just not up to par 1) anything geospatial, including drawing maps. here is a list of projects my students did to give examples: https://pennmusa.github.io/MUSA_801.io/ https://pennmusa.github.io/MUSA_801.io/ 2) time series 3) linear models, is it so hard to give me a good summary? If anyone knows of any packages that do these >= R, I'd love to see them :)
- stevesimmons 8y ago
  > why in 2019 is there no good way to visualize a decision tree? You should try https://github.com/parrt/dtreeviz https://github.com/parrt/dtreeviz. From Terrence Parr and Vince Grover, released in Sept 2018. There is a good background article on the problem space and their design iterations here: https://explained.ai/decision-tree-viz/index.html https://explained.ai/decision-tree-viz/index.html
  - autokad 8y ago
    thanks for the info, but as I said above anything that relies on the installation of graphiz is extremely hoaky, and as you can see on many posts on SO, doesnt work many times.
hikarudo 8y ago
What is the pydata library set? numpy, pandas, matplotlib, sklearn and the like? My google fu is failing me...
- natalyarostova 8y ago
  Yeah pretty much.

simonh 8y ago

I’ve known people who built lucrative careers on expertise in specialised technologies, and others who’s entire careers disappeared because they were too specialised and the technology got deprecated. You might be fine, but I’d definitely recommend diversifying your skill set a bit. Being a generalist has served me well.

SZJX 8y ago
I would say every capable programmer should be a "generalist" in a sense and be able to transfer their skills with relatively little effort. If they can't, they are not really that good at the abstract concepts. Still this doesn't prevent one from focusing more and specializing more on one field/language that they love and be as familiar with it as possible.

jriot 8y ago

As a data scientist myself, I learned to write code that utilized arrays and matrices - from the most basic library. From cleaning to analysis to machine learning (I supposed numpy was used for ML). Is this the most correct manner to write code? I don't know but learning to do DS without specific Python libraries has improved my coding ability. Aside from being able to read in different data formats I believe I could do a fair portion of my work in C.

tomrod 8y ago

I came in to the pydata library after extended time in Matlab/Octave. Learning there first was terrible for programming basics (e.g. polymorphism) but was excellent for ensuring I knew what a given algorithm does/should do. I highly recommend spending some time in C/C++, Go, or Julia to pydata-first folks that ask.

autokad 8y ago

the libraries have grown nicely over the years, though I am surprised they still lack some basic stuff. why in 2019 is there no good way to visualize a decision tree? having to install, configure, and get working graphviz feels very hoaky. I prefer python, but R still does some things really well that the python libraries are just not up to par 1) anything geospatial, including drawing maps. here is a list of projects my students did to give examples: https://pennmusa.github.io/MUSA_801.io/ https://pennmusa.github.io/MUSA_801.io/ 2) time series 3) linear models, is it so hard to give me a good summary? If anyone knows of any packages that do these >= R, I'd love to see them :)

stevesimmons 8y ago
> why in 2019 is there no good way to visualize a decision tree? You should try https://github.com/parrt/dtreeviz https://github.com/parrt/dtreeviz. From Terrence Parr and Vince Grover, released in Sept 2018. There is a good background article on the problem space and their design iterations here: https://explained.ai/decision-tree-viz/index.html https://explained.ai/decision-tree-viz/index.html
- autokad 8y ago
  thanks for the info, but as I said above anything that relies on the installation of graphiz is extremely hoaky, and as you can see on many posts on SO, doesnt work many times.

hikarudo 8y ago

What is the pydata library set? numpy, pandas, matplotlib, sklearn and the like? My google fu is failing me...

natalyarostova 8y ago
Yeah pretty much.