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I do a lot of BI and am a coder. I find these tools (Tableau) super frustrating. So much point and click. Such poor abstractions. Not at all DRY. I like the end

I do a lot of BI and am a coder. I find these tools (Tableau) super frustrating. So much point and click. Such poor abstractions. Not at all DRY. I like the end product just not the process. Lacks a good API for doing it programmatically - which makes sense as they make money selling desktops.

sebastiansm 4y ago
Dis you tried Shiny, Dash or something like those tools?
turtlebits 4y ago
The reason for point and click is that you need to be able to experiment and iterate quickly, which is what point and click is good for (ie tweaking knobs). BI is about asking lots of questions of your data and seeing which ones provide useful results. If you already know what question you have in mind, then yeah, it's going to be a bit tedious.
- levi-turner 4y ago
  Winner, winner. I am at a competitor of Tableau's, but the point remains the same. One of our favorite quotes was an upper executive at a major technology retailer who told us a version of "it's so cheap to fail with you guys". There are absolutely needs for engineers who (deeply) understand SQL, can write python code, and can whip up a d3 chart. But that's an expensive project. There are many, many more individuals in organizations who would make much smarter decisions if they learned a tiny bit of SQL, a basic data warehouse, and were presented with a GUI tool (PowerBI, Tableau, Qlik, etc, etc).
- Foobar8568 4y ago
  Exactly, mainly because nobody has a clue of their own data, so fast iteration is a must, and engineering in the IT departments supporting these solutions are some of the most clueless engineers I met.
Twisell 4y ago
Well in good tools (Tableau being one of them) there is always the raw SQL query somewhere (ideally with parameters) so that you can do the heavy lifting in code but style use the GUI for quick and nice interactive rendering. PS: Well some tools are even cooler like QGis for map making. The GUI of this FOSS tool is heavily parametrizable and fully extensible/scriptable in Python/QT. There is quite not not yet an equivalent in BI world...

sebastiansm 4y ago

Dis you tried Shiny, Dash or something like those tools?

turtlebits 4y ago

The reason for point and click is that you need to be able to experiment and iterate quickly, which is what point and click is good for (ie tweaking knobs). BI is about asking lots of questions of your data and seeing which ones provide useful results. If you already know what question you have in mind, then yeah, it's going to be a bit tedious.

levi-turner 4y ago
Winner, winner. I am at a competitor of Tableau's, but the point remains the same. One of our favorite quotes was an upper executive at a major technology retailer who told us a version of "it's so cheap to fail with you guys". There are absolutely needs for engineers who (deeply) understand SQL, can write python code, and can whip up a d3 chart. But that's an expensive project. There are many, many more individuals in organizations who would make much smarter decisions if they learned a tiny bit of SQL, a basic data warehouse, and were presented with a GUI tool (PowerBI, Tableau, Qlik, etc, etc).
Foobar8568 4y ago
Exactly, mainly because nobody has a clue of their own data, so fast iteration is a must, and engineering in the IT departments supporting these solutions are some of the most clueless engineers I met.

Twisell 4y ago

Well in good tools (Tableau being one of them) there is always the raw SQL query somewhere (ideally with parameters) so that you can do the heavy lifting in code but style use the GUI for quick and nice interactive rendering. PS: Well some tools are even cooler like QGis for map making. The GUI of this FOSS tool is heavily parametrizable and fully extensible/scriptable in Python/QT. There is quite not not yet an equivalent in BI world...