Data Analytics, Data Scientists - Nature of work, Academic Background Required, Industries that use it

From http://blogs.msdn.com/b/brunoterkaly/archive/2014/07/24/fundamentals-of-machine-learning.aspx :

Excerpt:

How to think about the analytics spectrum

One great way to think about machine learning is to break down analytics into 3 questions:

1. What happened?
   • Historical
2. What will happen?
   • Predictive
3. What should I do next?
   • Prescriptive

How to think of the personas doing analytics

1. The information worker
   • Typically using a self-service approach using Power BI.
     • Power BI for Office 365 is a self-service business intelligence (BI) solution delivered through Excel and Office 365 that provides information workers with data analysis and visualization capabilities to identify deeper business insights about their data
2. IT professionals
   • Involved in data transformation, data warehousing, creating data merchant cubes for analytics, and data modeling
   • Work for GM's are directors
3. Data scientists
   • Deeply technical and skilled not just with code, but with mathematics, statistics, and probability
   • Can use a variety of techniques to apply probability to predictions (ie, there is a 42% chance that prices will go up in the next 18 hours)
   • Like Monte Carlo simulations, parameterizing the model
   • What to look for in a data scientist
     • Domain Knowledge
     • Clear Understanding Of The Scientific Method
       • Objectivity, Hypothesis, Validation, Transparency
     • Strong in Math and Statistics
     • Intellectual Curiosity and Critical Thinking
     • Visualization and Communication
     • Advanced Computing And Data Management

Academic backgrounds

If you were to go to school, went to study to be a data scientist, what courses would you take?

1. Applied Mathematics
2. Computer Science
3. Econometrics
4. Statistics
5. Engineering

Industries that really benefit from that of science

1. Financial Services
2. Telecommunications
3. Information Technology
4. Manufacturing
5. Utilities
6. Healthcare
7. Marketing

.Net, Azure related: free Training videos

http://flashcast.azurewebsites.net/

Rails: try, respond_to?

User.find(5).email
- will blow up if 'email' property is not present

User.find(5).try(:email)  
- will return 'nil' if 'email' property is not present


respond_to? is a Ruby method for detecting whether the class has a particular method on it.

@user.respond_to?('eat_food')

Rails: leave your migrations in your Rails engines

http://pivotallabs.com/leave-your-migrations-in-your-rails-engines/

The Process of Design

From http://blog.kevanahlquist.com/2014/07/18/design-process-squiggle/

C#: Suggestions to improve performance - Boxing & Collections

Below blogpost talks about how to use a Memory Profiler also - dotMemory.

http://blog.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2014/07/10/unusual-ways-of-boosting-up-app-performance-boxing-and-collections/

When you introduce some struct type, make sure that methods that work with this struct don’t convert it to a reference type anywhere in the code. For example, one common mistake is passing variables of value types to methods working with strings (e.g.,String.Format):A simple fix is to call the ToString() method of the appropriate value type:

jquery: checkbox & radiobutton related

Is checkbox checked:

 if ($('#order_use_billing').is(':checked')){

}

Wiring up event-handler to Radiobuttons & checking which one was selected:

$('[name=use_existing_billing_address]:radio').change(function(){
  if ($('[name=use_existing_billing_address]:checked').val() == 'yes') {
   
  }
  else {
 
  }
}

System Administration Screencasts

http://sysadmincasts.com/

git - cheat sheet

http://www.git-tower.com/blog/git-cheat-sheet-detail/

git - cherry pick

http://nathanhoad.net/how-to-cherry-pick-changes-with-git

First, from within your feature branch, copy the first six or seven characters of the ID of the commit that you want to bring in:

Now jump into the branch that you want to insert the commit into (I'm using master):

git checkout master

And then cherry-pick your commit:

git cherry-pick c90fd66

Now if you do a git log you will see your cherry-picked commit at the top.

Career Advice for Programmers

Something that is worse than Failure - becoming Progressively Worse

What Could Possibly Be Worse Than Failure?
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/What_Could_Possibly_Be_Worse_Than_Failure_0x3f_.aspx

Author writes about:
- is making it to Production = Success ?
- if we do not recognize/admit failure
  - a developer/team could become progressively worse