Hi all,

I agree. I spend probably 70% of my time in notebooks. However, the
distinction is between "initial coding" vs. "coding". In my specific
environment (which I do not claim is authoritative or representative), I
have found many users stay in the IDE/notebook environment. Further, I have
found this trend to be more likely (again, small sample size) with R users
over Python users. I'm curious if this is true of other environments as
well.

Cheers,
Matt

On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 7:31 PM, Alfred Essa <[email protected]> wrote:

> These days most of the initial coding in Python in scientific computing
> and data science communities is done in the Jupyter environment.  Working
> in the command line is not how practitioners code in Python.
>
> Best,
> Alfred
> VP, R&D and Analytics
> McGraw-Hill Education
>
> On Sun, Apr 3, 2016 at 11:50 AM, Naupaka Bruce Zimmerman <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hi Matt,
>>
>> I agree with that difference (IDE vs command line). During the initial
>> data exploration/visualization phase, it can be easier IME to have the
>> interactive IDE environment to prototype things in. My sense is that
>> many/most R users prefer to just work with their scripts interactively
>> (like your labmates). Once people get to the point where they're putting
>> together multi-script workflows, for example with make, then most people
>> tend to use R similarly to python (that is, writing scripts that take input
>> and create output).
>>
>> I could be wrong on this, but it seems to me that the way python code is
>> written these days is different than it used to be (at least in the context
>> of scientific data analysis), largely because of IPython/Jupyter (even
>> without the notebook interface). The command-line inclination you pointed
>> out among python users might have to do with the legacy of how
>> python/perl/etc were often written before IPython came along. I'd be
>> interested to hear what long-time python users think of this shift (or if
>> I'm way off-base). I think python IDEs like Rodeo and PyCharm with an
>> IPython kernel (or even the notebook) are much closer to the RStudio way of
>> doing things than, for example, editing a script in your editor of choice,
>> saving the script, and then running it from the command line, which is how
>> I originally learned to write both perl and python.
>>
>> In contrast to python, I don't think that coding in perl has changed
>> much, because there is no perl equivalent to IPython (as far as I know?).
>> Alternatively, that could just be because perl is so closely related to
>> sh/sed/awk and the 'shell' way of doing things, vs python which is further
>> from that set of syntax. Anyway, interesting to think about how these
>> things shift over time.
>>
>> Also, there is indeed a SWC lesson on using R from the command line, here:
>> http://swcarpentry.github.io/r-novice-inflammation/05-cmdline.html
>>
>> Best,
>> Naupaka
>>
>> On 3 Apr 2016, at 6:58, Matthew Gidden wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> Some additional observations from the R vs. Python world in my current
>>> context:
>>>
>>> I'm finding that there is another natural divide between primary users of
>>> each language, which deals with how they actually *use* the tools. From
>>> my
>>> experience, R users expect to be working in R studio (or a similar IDE),
>>> and while there are Python IDEs, etc., I find most Python users to be *in
>>> general* more familiar with the command line. I think this has a direct
>>> impact on how users perceive of the usefulness of each tool. I have two
>>> anecdotal examples. I recently made an R CLI to do a simple analysis;
>>> however, I found that when I went to shop it around my research group, no
>>> one wanted to use it -- they'd rather a script or module that they could
>>> run directly in their IDE (that is, their workflow is: open IDE, open
>>> file,
>>> click run). Further, I learned recently that the dplyr package (very
>>> popular in the R ecosystem) has specific functions for "programmatic"
>>> use,
>>> e.g., summarize_each() vs. summarize_each_(), again speaking to the use
>>> of
>>> the tools in a "hands-on" mode, rather than a "headless" mode.
>>>
>>> With the use if IPython, we teach lessons for both languages in a very
>>> IDE-friendly envrionment, but I have always provided at least one example
>>> of running files from the command line when I teach the SWC stack using
>>> Python. Do teachers of the R stack also do this? Is it important to make
>>> such a distinction?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Matt
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 3:01 AM, Vilbig, Kevin P <
>>> [email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Most of the really rad tools out there use polyglot stacks, anyway.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> There is no reason why you can't run a bash script that runs a python
>>>> script (or some weird ancient legacy tool) to run some analysis that
>>>> pipes
>>>> a final CSV into an R script's dataframe for plotting using the
>>>> prettyness
>>>> of ggplot.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Programming Languages are for people.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------
>>>> *From:* Discuss <[email protected]> on
>>>> behalf
>>>> of E.W. <[email protected]>
>>>> *Sent:* Thursday, March 31, 2016 2:51 PM
>>>> *To:* Matthew Gidden
>>>> *Cc:* [email protected]
>>>> *Subject:* Re: [Discuss] Any tips for learning R and Python?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If I am recalling things correctly, and this will certainly be
>>>> contentious
>>>> for some folk, but Python is a general purpose programming language
>>>> while R
>>>> is a statistical programming language.
>>>>
>>>> I think it is generally the case that with enough hacking you can
>>>> accomplish nearly any task with any tool, but some tools are more geared
>>>> towards performing certain tasks.  I like to stress to brand new
>>>> students
>>>> that the question is never "can" but "should" or "which is easier?"
>>>> when it
>>>> comes to this kind of thing. Sometimes even a brutal hack is more
>>>> efficient
>>>> or mentally easier to accomplish than fighting to learn something in a
>>>> new
>>>> language that you aren't comfortable with. "I know this could be better
>>>> R,
>>>> but I need to get the job done. [translation: please don't judge my for
>>>> loops]" is a completely sane and normal reaction.  Programming
>>>> communities
>>>> or those offering consultations shouldn't turn into handwriting judges.
>>>>
>>>> This doesn't mean we should reject or toss away the importance of
>>>> language
>>>> idioms, but turn our attention to respecting that it's the research
>>>> content
>>>> that matters and not which plotting library or whatever else they
>>>> used.  I
>>>> think that SWC does a great job of this balance and showing it in
>>>> action.
>>>>
>>>> I don't believe there is a clear line to be drawn between Python and R,
>>>> except in the cases when a specific package is needed and does not exist
>>>> for that other language.  The choice between Python or R is never *just*
>>>> about the task, but also about the skills, experiences, and support
>>>> networks of the person who will be writing the code for that task.
>>>>
>>>> Elizabeth
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Discuss mailing list
>>>> [email protected]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Discuss mailing list
>>> [email protected]
>>>
>>> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> [email protected]
>>
>> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
>>
>
>
_______________________________________________
Discuss mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org

Reply via email to