A Beginning
My name is Chris.
I have an educational deficit what needs correcting.
I work as a full stack web developer for an amazing company that runs a series of web APIs. While web development continues to change and present interesting challenges, I want to eventually transition into a data science role. To do this, I need to self-educate in a pretty big, rigorous way.
I have something of a handle on what I need to learn. For instance, I know that I’m weak in math and stats. I’ve currently not studied beyond college algebra. I have a loose awareness of graph theory. I’m okay in data collection. I’ve written web scrapers before, but I’ve never written a web crawler from scratch. I’ve pulled data sets and migrated them between database technologies (looking at you, MS Access to MySQL). I’m okay in data regularization. I know enough REGEX to get by for most of what I do. I’m aware of OpenRefine. I’m completely inexperienced in machine learning, and I’m completely inexperienced with data science specific visualization tools (Gephi, ggplot2, D3, etc.).
A bit about me.
I’m a passable software dev.
I use source control religiously. I write self-documented code with the intent that it will be read and modified by other developers, both present and future. I’m getting better at TDD as a coding discipline. I know my tools pretty well. I strive for DRY, I’m passable in OOP, and I’m dangerous in FP. I’m strong with JavaScript, SCSS, and HTML, I’m okay with Python, PHP, and Ruby, and I’m a menace with C and R. I know recursion from iteration, can ballpark Big O reasonably well, and can can ask a question on Stack Overflow without getting down voted into oblivion. I have something like a brown belt in Google-fu.
I’m an old hand with the graphics.
Among other things, I have some fairly significant professional experience in CAD (check my YouTube channel if you want to learn) and Adobe’s creative software (and its FOSS alternatives). I’m no stranger to graphing in a spreadsheet application. I’m also handy with a pencil, given my past life as a draftsman. I know the difference between extra small, extra large, and extra medium.
I collect and regularize data.
I used to help my dad do field work for his research (imagine the convergence in a Venn diagram between white pine branches, children, and 22–250's). People call me when they need to clean up text in batch. I once sorted and counted Reese’s Pieces and recorded my findings in a spreadsheet, then convinced my coworkers to do the same. No, you shut up. No, you’re weird.
But lo, what light through yonder window breaks?
That’s all real nice. So what?
This blog is the record of my journey and I have a lot of ground to cover. I have books to read. I have math to learn. I have data to collect and clean. I have languages, libraries, and tools to practice. Some posts will be short. Some will be long. Some will be multi-part. Surprise. You’re on the Internet, reading a blog.
The end.
