It may seem surprising that a page like this would exist on this blog. After all, this is a blog on data science and A.I. Well, regardless of our field, we all need to write from time to time, be it for a blog, a report, or even the documentation that accompanies our work. Since writing in a grammatically correct way, void of typos doesn't come naturally to most of us, an online service like Grammarly can come in handy.
I was recommended this service about a year back by a fellow writer. Although my texts were pretty decent, I found that I'd still make some mistakes from time to time, or build sentences that weren't easy to follow. So, I took up the suggestion and started using Grammarly for some of my articles. The result in terms of engagement was evident from the very beginning. As a result, I've been using Grammarly ever since. At the same time, it's now part of my pipeline when it comes to publishing articles on this blog. So, when I promote this service, it's out of my empirical understanding of its value and an appreciation of the tech behind it. For example, did you know that it uses deep learning and natural language processing (NLP) on the back-end? It also evaluates text based on different styles and objectives, giving you an overall score, all while pinpointing errors and points of improvement. For each one of these mistakes, it provides suggestions of how you can correct them and a rationale so that you learn from them. What more can you ask for? I invite you to try it out on your browser using this affiliate link and if you see merit in it, register for the paid version. Using this link, you can also contribute to this ad-free blog by helping cover some of its expenses. Cheers!
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Although I covered this topic briefly about a year and a half ago, it seems that it's due for an update. After all, many people still are unaware of this terrific tool, while I always get positive feedback when I introduce it to mentees of mine. In a nutshell, Wakelet is a simple collection tool for organizing and sharing content over the internet. The collections (aka wakelets) can be private, public, or shareable with specific individuals via a link. The Wakelet website does a great job of informing people about the merits of this tool, which is quite popular among educators. What it doesn't tell you is that it's great for data science practitioners too. Namely, a wakelet can be a great place to exhibit your portfolio of projects, as well as any other material that you’ve created that’s relevant to a data science career. You can also include any publications you may have, any videos you’ve created, and any programs you’d like to share with the data science world. The big advantage of wakelets is that you can add supplementary text to accompany your material, so the whole thing is more meaningful and accessible to your audience. The free graphics the program offers are also useful for making the collection more appealing to newcomers. So far I’ve developed a few wakelets, mostly around the AI-related articles I’ve written and the books I’ve authored. Also, there are a few wakelets that I keep private as well as another one I’ve shared with an associate of mine. What’s more, I plan to continue creating wakelets as I have more material to share (e.g. webinars, videos, etc.) The community aspect of Wakelet is something I’ve recently discovered and I’m in the process of exploring. In any case, it’s always interesting to view other people’s wakelets and get ideas about how to organize shareable content elegantly. The collaboration aspect of Wakelet is something worth exploring too. It involves two or more people working on the same wakelet, either contributing or editing content. This can be done in the traditional way whereby the contributors access a wakelet independently, or they can collaborate through MS Teams and share content from there (e.g. conversations) through their wakelet. Wakelet collaboration is still fairly new as a feature but it's getting quite popular and it's something worth looking into, for sure. Wakelet is quite popular among content creators but it seems that its target audience is growing as it develops new features and a larger community of users. As a result, it may become the go-to option for sharing any content that's large enough to not fit in a single document. Also, as wakelets can be organized efficiently and elegantly in the wakelet page, it makes sense to create several of these collections and perhaps even link them together, when this makes sense. In any case, the fact that all these collections are also accessible through the corresponding app makes it a versatile and practical tool. So, I invite you to check it out and let me know what you think about it. Cheers! With all this talk these days about Statistics and other frameworks and their immense value in data science, it’s good to be more pragmatic about this matter. After all, it’s not a coincidence that Machine Learning maintains the top position both as a framework and as a specialization when it comes to data science work. In this article, we'll explore why this is. First of all, machine learning is a more scientific paradigm for data science. It doesn't make any assumptions as it relies on the data at hand and nothing else. Well, there are also the ML models that it makes use of, but it doesn't try to model everything as this or the other distribution and rely on metrics based on these distributions. The scientific approach has proven itself to be very useful in understanding the world, so it only makes sense that it is used (in the form of machine learning methods) in data science too. What’s more, machine learning makes use of more advanced methods than other frameworks. After all, it makes sense that if a framework works well, as in the case of machine learning, more methods are researched and refined. As a result, the models that machine learning brings to the table are more state-of-the-art and efficient. This makes using the machine learning framework a no-brainer, particularly when it comes to critical processes where accuracy and efficiency are key requirements. Also, machine learning nowadays is powered to a great extent by AI, creating powerful models that outperform anything else available to a data scientist. This may be a trend that's here to stay since many AI-based model have proven to be exceptionally good and versatile. Although these models have special requirements that may not be met in every data science option, it's good that there is this option available for data science work. Moreover, machine learning is easier to learn and use since it doesn't have a lot of theory behind it. As a result, you don't need to spend a lot of time learning it or having to worry about the requirements of each model, like in Statistics. Of course, there is some theory in this framework too, but it's fairly straight-forward and doesn't require too specialized math to learn it to an adequate degree. Finally, there are lots of libraries nowadays for every machine learning model or process, making it easy to implement. In other words, you don't have to do a lot of coding to get your machine learning method up and running. Also, the fact that there is usually adequate documentation in these libraries makes it easier to understand the corresponding programs and the techniques too, supplementing your learning. Speaking of learning, if you wish to learn more about machine learning through a hands-on approach to the subject, feel free to check out my latest book, Julia for Machine Learning (Technics Publications). There I talk about the subject in some depth, while I explain how you can use Julia to deploy different kinds of machine learning models and heuristics. Cheers! What is an API? In Computer Science, an API is short for Application Programming Interface. This is in essence a facilitator for an organization (e.g. a company) to share information with its clients and partners over the internet, oftentimes bypassing websites. And API is designed for computer programs so it’s usually developers that deal with this tech, though many data scientists and business people are getting involved in this promising piece of technology. Why are APIs important? APIs make prototyping a service super-fast, while they enable easier and more scalable leveraging of data. The latter can come from all sorts of sources and systems since APIs are platform-agnostic. So, if you were to create a mobile app that employs geo-location data, along with various security processes (e.g. for user authentication), you can do this easily using APIs. Also, if you have a website already for handling this sort of information exchanges, you can use an API for your target audience to interact with your online system, without even having to go to your site (the API becomes a proxy for the back-end of your site enabling them to access it through the app). For these and other reasons APIs are very important today and an essential part of any data-driven organization. Thoughts on the "API Success" book So, what about the "API success" book by Nelson Petracek (Technics Publications)? Well, this book covers the topic from various angles, with a strong focus on the business side of it. It provides lots of examples justifying the value-add of APIs and where they fit in in a modern organization. The book is well-written and easy to read, despite the large number of acronyms used in it. Interestingly, the book covers marketing as well, making a strong case for using APIs in a business project, be it as the main product or part of a package. It even explores how APIs can facilitate partnerships with other organizations and the fostering of long-term business relationships. The author, who is a very hands-on person, has a good sense of humor and writes in a way that's engaging and easy to follow. The strongest part of the book, in my view, is the various architectural and design-related tips and lots of advice on the life cycle of an API, along with the corresponding diagrams that make this quite comprehensible. As for shortcomings, the lack of any hands-on material or reference resources is the only one that stands out. Nevertheless, the rest of the book makes up for this, through comprehensive coverage of the topic from various angles. How you can get this book at a 20% discount Although this book is available in a variety of places, you can get it at a discounted price if you go to the publisher’s site and use the coupon code DSML at the checkout. The book is already reasonably priced (around $30 for the printed version) but why not get it at a lower price? After all, this is a book with evergreen content, something you’d like to refer to again and again, maybe even share with your team when building your own APIs. Check it out! In a previous article we talked about the value of data modeling and how it is related to data science as a field. Now let’s look at some great ways to learn more about this field. Specifically, Technics Publications offers a few classes/workshops on data modeling this Autumn:
What’s more, you can get a 20% discount on them, if you use the coupon code DSML. You can use the same code for most of the books available on that site. Check it out! JuliaCon stands for Julia Conference and it’s an annual educational/promotional event that Julia Computing organizes. The latter is the Massachusetts based company that manages the development and evolution of the programming language. So, JuliaCon is its way of promoting the language and keeping everyone interested in it updated on its recent developments. JuliaCon is primarily for programmers and members of the scientific community employing Julia in their work. However, it also appeals to Julia enthusiasts and anyone interested in the ecosystem of the language, as well as its numerous applications. It’s not targeted at data scientists per se though lately there are several sessions in the conference that involve Machine Learning and A.I. since lots of people are interested in these areas. Note that most of the people involved in these packages are not professional data scientists, though some of them are familiar with the field and have written papers about it (mostly academic papers). So, if you are looking to learn about data science in this conference you may be disappointed, yet if you just wish to explore what Julia brings to the table when it comes to data science tools, you may be in for a treat. This year several interesting things were revealed in the JuliaCon, which I attended. Namely, the Tuesday workshop on improving Julia code performance and compatibility with other programming languages was truly worth it as it covered a variety of tweaks that can make a script use less memory and/or work faster. Also, being able to incorporate Python and C code in a Julia script was something that was covered thoroughly, more than any documentation page could. Unfortunately, some sessions weren’t properly synced and were either delayed or altogether missing from the live stream (at least on my Firefox browser). This definitely took away from the whole conference experience. Perhaps if the whole conference was done on Zoom, it would have been a smoother experience. The Q&A chat in the workshops was a nice touch though and added a lot to them. The sessions themselves were pretty good overall, covering a variety of topics, from the more technical to the more application-oriented. They were organized in different tracks, making it easy to find the session you were most interested in. The Interactive data dashboards with Julia and Stipple session stood out. Even though it was a fairly short one, it was very relevant to data science work and with good examples, showcasing its functionality. I’d definitely recommend you watch the recording of it, which should be available by now at the Julia YouTube channel, along with the other sessions of the conference. JuliaCon usually takes place in either the US or Europe. This year it was Europe’s turn to host the conference and it was scheduled to take place in Lisbon, Portugal. Although that laid-back Mediterranean capital would be ideal for such a conference (definitely more accessible than London, where it took place a couple of years ago), this year for the first time it took place online. This was due to the safety measures related to Covid-19 that impacted logistics severely. Anyway, if all goes well, it's expected that next year it will take place in the US. If you wish to delve more into Julia feel free to check out my books on the subject. Cheers! |
Zacharias Voulgaris, PhDPassionate data scientist with a foxy approach to technology, particularly related to A.I. Archives
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