You can't do data science in a GUI

Transcript

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   Hadley Wickham 
 @hadleywickham
 Chief Scientist, RStudio You can’t do

   data science in a GUI March 2018
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   Data science is the process by which data becomes understanding,

   knowledge and insight Data science is the process by which data becomes understanding, knowledge and insight
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   Data science is the process by which data becomes understanding,

   knowledge and insight Data science is the process by which data becomes understanding, knowledge and insight
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   Tidy Import Store data consistently

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   Tidy Import Understand Store data consistently

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   Tidy Import Surprises, but doesn't scale Create new variables &

   new summaries Visualise Transform Model Scales, but doesn't (fundamentally) surprise Store data consistently
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   Tidy Import Surprises, but doesn't scale Create new variables &

   new summaries Visualise Transform Model Communicate Scales, but doesn't (fundamentally) surprise Automate Store data consistently
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   Tidy Import Visualise Transform Model Program tibble tidyr purrr magrittr

   dplyr forcats hms ggplot2 broom modelr readr readxl haven xml2 lubridate stringr tidyverse.org r4ds.had.co.nz
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   Why program?

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    Cognitive Computational Think it Describe it (precisely) Do it

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    None
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    None
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    table %>% rename(player = X1, team = X2, position =

    X3) %>% filter(player != 'PLAYER') %>% mutate( college = ifelse(player == position, player, NA) ) %>% fill(college) %>% filter(player != college) Programming languages are languages
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    It’s just text! And this gives you access to two

    extremely powerful techniques
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    ⌘C ⌘V

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    And provides provenance Reproducible Readable Diffable Open

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    I live in fear of clicking the wrong thing

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    Why program 
 in R?

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    x <- sample(100, 10) x > 50 #> [1] TRUE

    FALSE FALSE TRUE TRUE #> [6] TRUE TRUE FALSE FALSE TRUE sum(x > 50) #> [1] 6 # (There are no scalars! ) R is a vector language
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    y <- sample(c(1:5, NA)) y #> [1] 1 NA 2

    3 5 4 y > 2 #> [1] FALSE NA FALSE TRUE TRUE TRUE y == NA #> [1] NA NA NA NA NA NA Missing values are baked in
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    john_age <- NA mary_age <- NA john_age == mary_age #>

    [1] NA An example makes this clearer
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    y <- sample(c(1:5, NA)) y #> [1] 1 NA 2

    3 5 4 y > 2 #> [1] FALSE NA FALSE TRUE TRUE TRUE is.na(y) #> [1] FALSE TRUE FALSE FALSE FALSE FALSE Missing values are baked in
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    data.frame( x = 1:4, y = sample(letters[1:4]), z = runif(4)

    ) #> x y z #> 1 1 c 0.1189635 #> 2 2 a 0.0518956 #> 3 3 b 0.4471441 #> 4 4 d 0.0818547 So are relational tables (aka data frames/tibbles)
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    # It's well suited to data science but I #

    can't (yet) articulate why # Something about having a standard # container for 80% of problems, and # needing to do something to each element # of that container # Whole object thinking? Functional programming
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    x <- seq(0, 2 * pi, length = 100) plot(x,

    sin(x), type = "l") Metaprogramming 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 −1.0 −0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 x sin(x)
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    None
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    Which makes it a great place to write DSLs

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    Why program in R with the ?

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    Solve complex https://unsplash.com/photos/tjX_sniNzgQ simple pieces combining problems by

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    library(tidycensus) geo <- get_acs( geography = "metropolitan statistical area...", variables

    = "DP03_0021PE", summary_var = "B01003_001", survey = "acs1", endyear = 2016 ) # Thanks to Kyle Walker (@kyle_e_walker) # For package and example A small example
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    big_metro <- geo %>% filter(summary_est > 2e6) %>% select(-variable) %>%

    mutate( NAME = gsub(" Metro Area", "", NAME) ) %>% separate(NAME, c("city", "state"), ", ") %>% mutate( city = str_extract(city, "^[A-Za-z ]+"), state = str_extract(state, "^[A-Za-z ]+"), name = paste0(city, ", ", state), summary_moe = na_if(summary_moe, -555555555) ) Followed by data munging
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    None
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    big_metro %>% ggplot(aes( x = estimate, y = reorder(name, estimate))

    ) + geom_errorbarh( aes( xmin = estimate - moe, xmax = estimate + moe ), width = 0.1 ) + geom_point(color = "navy")
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    • • • • • • • • • •

    • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Indianapolis, IN Kansas City, MO Riverside, CA Charlotte, NC Dallas, TX Tampa, FL Detroit, MI Columbus, OH Phoenix, AZ Cincinnati, OH Houston, TX Orlando, FL Sacramento, CA Austin, TX San Antonio, TX San Juan, PR St, MO San Diego, CA Atlanta, GA Cleveland, OH Las Vegas, NV Miami, FL Denver, CO Minneapolis, MN Los Angeles, CA Pittsburgh, PA Baltimore, MD Portland, OR Philadelphia, PA Seattle, WA Chicago, IL Boston, MA Washington, DC San Francisco, CA New York, NY 0 10 20 30 estimate reorder(name, estimate)
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    • • • • • • • • • •

    • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Indianapolis, IN Kansas City, MO Riverside, CA Charlotte, NC Dallas, TX Tampa, FL Detroit, MI Columbus, OH Phoenix, AZ Cincinnati, OH Houston, TX Orlando, FL Sacramento, CA Austin, TX San Antonio, TX San Juan, PR St, MO San Diego, CA Atlanta, GA Cleveland, OH Las Vegas, NV Miami, FL Denver, CO Minneapolis, MN Los Angeles, CA Pittsburgh, PA Baltimore, MD Portland, OR Philadelphia, PA Seattle, WA Chicago, IL Boston, MA Washington, DC San Francisco, CA New York, NY 0% 10% 20% 30% 2016 1−year ACS estimates Residents who take public transportation to work Source: ACS Data Profile variable DP03_0021P / tidycensus
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    No matter how complex and polished the individual operations are,

    it is often the quality of the glue that most directly determines the power of the system. — Hal Abelson
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    My goal is to make a pit of success http://blog.codinghorror.com/falling-into-the-pit-of-success/

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    But

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    df %>% select( date = `Date Created`, name = Name,

    plays = `Total Plays`, loads = `Total Loads`, apv = `Average Percent Viewed` ) But this is painful!
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    None
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    df %>% filter(n > 1e6) %>% mutate(x = f(y))) %>%

    ??? # How predictable is next step from # previous steps? What next?
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    Can we do more with autocomplete? Where do dialogs and

    autocomplete intersect?
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    Learning from examples http://vis.stanford.edu/papers/wrangler

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    What about deep learning? https://twitter.com/carroll_jono/status/914254139873361920

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    Conclusion

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    I believe that: 1. Huge advantages to code 2. R

    provides great environment 3. DSLs help express your thoughts 4. Code should be primary artefact (but might be generated other than typing)