For those of you who might have missed it, the website KDnuggets released their latest internet survey on data science tools, and Python came out ahead, again. Python has continued to gain as a tool that people are using for Data Science.  The article accompanying the graphic is very interesting as it brings up two data related points. The first is the survey only had “over 2300 votes” and “…one vendor – RapidMiner – had a very active campaign to vote in KDnuggets poll”.  This points the fallacy in completely relying on data with an insufficiently sized data set, as it is possible to skew the results, which is true both for surveys and data science projects.  If you look at the remaining results one thing also strikes me as interesting. Anaconda and sci-kit learn are Python libraries.  Tensorflow could be used for either R or Python.  This does tend to increase the argument for more use of R or Python over RapidMiner.  The survey also made me want to check out RapidMiner.

Thoughts around Rapid Miner for Machine Learning

While I have not had enough time to fully analyze Rapid Miner, I thought I would give my initial analysis here and do a more detailed review of it in another post.  Rapid Miner scored well in the Kaggle Survey, but also it ranked highly on the 2018 Garner Magic Quadrant for Data Science Platforms.  Rapid Miner is trying to be a tool not only for data scientists, but also for business analysts as well.  The UI is pretty intuitive, which is good because the help is not what it should be. I also was less than impressed at its data visualization capabilities, as R and Python both provide much better visuals. Of course, I used the free version of the software, which works but it is limiting.  It looks like a lot of the new stuff is going to be only available on the paid version, which decreases my desire to really learn this tool.

Machine Learning Tools

Recently I have done a number of talks on Python in SQL Server, literally all around the world, including Brisbane, Australia tomorrow and Saturday, June 2 as well as in Christchurch New Zealand. As R was written in New Zealand, I thought that it would be the last place where people would be looking to use Python with Data Science, but several of the attendees of my precon on Machine Learning for SQL Server told me that where they worked, Python was being used to solve data science problems. Now of course this is anecdotal sample, as we are not talking about a statistically significant sample set, but that doesn’t keep it from being interesting.   The demand for Python training continues to increase as Microsoft has announced they are working on incorporating Machine Learning Service blog series with SQL Server Central.  The first two post have been released. Let me know what you think of them.

Upcoming Events

I am looking forward to talking about Machine Learning with SQL Server in Brisbane both at an intense day long session and at a one hour session on Implementing Python in SQL Server 2017 at SQL Saturday #713 – Brisbane, Australia. I look forward to seeing you there. For those who can’t make it, well, hopefully our paths will cross at a future event.

 

Yours Always,

Ginger Grant

Data aficionado et SQL Raconteur