Ruby & Science

Presented at Eurucamp 2013, Berlin (http://2013.eurucamp.org/).
It contains the seed ideas for the Alpha.rb project: http://alpharb.com

Transcript

1. Juanjo Bazán @xuanxu
   Ruby & Science
   

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2. Ruby & Science?
   

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3. Ruby & Science?
   FACT:
   RUBY IS NOT WIDELY USED
   IN RESEARCH PROJECTS
   

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4. Ruby ∩ Science ≃ ∅ ?
   Why?
   not suitable for scientific uses?
   

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5. Can Ruby fill the needs of scientists?
   What people in academia need?
   

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6. Research nowadays:
   Do
   something
   Collect
   data
   Manipulate
   data
   Interpret
   results
   

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7. FACT:
   It doesn’t matter the scientific discipline,
   

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8. FACT:
   It doesn’t matter the scientific discipline,
   It doesn’t matter the research field,
   

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9. FACT:
   It doesn’t matter the scientific discipline,
   it doesn’t matter the research field,
   (almost) every research project needs code.
   

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10. enter Ruby
    

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11. Ruby
    Slow
    

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12. Ruby
    Slow
    Lack of scientific libraries
    

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13. Ruby
    Slow
    Lack of scientific libraries
    Small academic user base
    

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14. Ruby
    Slow
    Lack of scientific libraries
    => Not suitable for science?
    Small academic user base
    

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15. core research, simulations, modeling, calculations ...
    R, automatization tasks, graphs, formatting data ...
    Research Project’s code
    WHAT?
    

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16. Wide spectrum of very different tasks
    Research Project’s code
    WHAT?
    Speed is not a factor
    

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17. Not programmers
    Research Project’s code
    WHO?
    Experienced enough to tweak an existent solution
    Help wanted
    

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18. What help are they
    getting?
    

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19. Python
    SciPy, NumPy
    

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20. Java
    Lots of libraries, easy to find
    

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21. Excel
    Really!
    

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22. How can we help?
    

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23. Ruby
    

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24. Ruby
    General purpose lang
    Increase developer happiness
    Powerful & beautiful syntax
    

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25. Ruby Researcher
    General purpose lang
    Increase developer happiness
    Powerful & beautiful syntax
    Not programmers
    Experience tweaking
    existent solutions
    Wide range of
    different code tasks
    

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26. Ruby
    Slow
    Lack of scientific libraries
    Small academic user base
    

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27. Ruby
    Lack of scientific libraries
    Small academic user base
    Slow Speed not a factor
    

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28. Ruby
    Slow
    Lack of scientific libraries
    Small academic user base
    Speed not a factor
    Let’s push here!
    

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29. SciRuby
    Goal: SciPy/NumPy for Ruby: SciRuby/NMatrix
    pre-alpha/alpha state
    Active development
    SciRuby.com github.com/SciRuby/sciruby
    Help wanted
    

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30. Let’s push Ruby into
    Academia
    Goals:
    - Make Ruby known to/used by researchers
    - Create an ecosystem of scientific ruby libs
    

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31. Let’s push Ruby into
    Academia
    Goals:
    - Create an ecosystem of scientific ruby libs
    - Make Ruby known to/used by researchers
    

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32. Let’s participate
    

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33. Direct action
    

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34. Direct action
    1. Choose a discipline you like
    

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35. Direct action
    1. Choose a discipline you like
    2. Find your closest university department
    

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36. Direct action
    1. Choose a discipline you like
    2. Find your closest university department
    3. Offer help & code
    

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37. Why?
    What’s in it for you?
    

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38. Why?
    More Ruby uses => Good for Rubysts & Ruby
    

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39. Why?
    OpenSource: Same motivations
    

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40. Why?
    Helping Science
    

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41. Why?
    Doing Science
    

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42. Why?
    OS rewards are good,
    helping science rewards are great
    

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43. Why?
    Learning about interesting issues & problems
    

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44. Why?
    Easy
    result/effort
    

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45. Why?
    

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46. Ruby & Science
    communities
    Sharing information is the norm
    Openness is a value
    Reputation based systems
    Members are welcoming and willing to help
    

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47. Can we make Ruby the
    programming language of
    Science?
    

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48. Probably No
    Maybe?
    Can we make Ruby the
    programming language of
    Science?
    

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49. Can we make Ruby the
    programming language of
    Science?
    Probably No
    Maybe?
    Who cares?
    

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50. Let’s make Ruby
    the favorite
    programming language
    of scientists!
    

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51. Thank you!
    Danke!
    Juanjo Bazán @xuanxu
    

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52. Questions?
    Juanjo Bazán @xuanxu hello@juanjobazan.com
    photo credits:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/aai/6936657289
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/3dking/148507938/
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/morton1905/8638721846
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanegorski/2449377038
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/5865762878
    

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