[ExI] Big Data Visualization

Tomasz Rola rtomek at ceti.pl
Tue May 20 18:19:27 UTC 2014


On Tue, May 20, 2014 at 02:25:47AM +0200, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> , 18/5/2014 3:48 AM:
> > Never used it, though. Seems to be well established in certain circles 
> > (data analysis, statistics and more).
>
> R is powerful, but likely best if you plan to do statistics and data
> processing rather than infoviz. There are apparently nice graphics
> libraries, but the learning curve is steep.  Look
> at http://d3js.org/ and http://www.jasondavies.com/ for some awesome
> things that can be done in javascript with the right library. 
> Hmm, http://www.processing.org/ is actually great for visualisation,

Visually-wise, they are very nice to look at. But there are some
long-term problems I can see with Javascript. Like, I need to have
compatible browser, so while I could do some stuff in it _right now_,
I don't really want to find myself in the same department where people
cry for help because their old sci/tech reports cannot be read (AmiPro
for DOS or something even more exotic long long gone) etc.

Besides, I myself can only stand one C-like language and its name is C.

Learning curve I can negotiate with. There is always some kind of
tradeoff. For example. trading time spent on learning now for time
spent on rewriting from scratch *and* learning something else,
later. The only fancy thing about it is that people AFAICT don't
recognise such situations until someone has to pay for what was in
small print on that last page.

> http://www.openprocessing.org/collection/1122 but requires java -
> which is a bit of the Sick Man of the Internet right now.

Oh, I could have told you this fifteen years ago, it's just the rest
of the world started to pay attention. And I have really followed my
own advice, i.e. pulled out of Java world, a bit painfully but without
much hesitation.

Well, ok, I could have told you this ten years ago. Fifteen years ago
I was only sick of Java.

JVM (i.e. a virtual machine) is something good, however. At least in
some aspects. There really is a need for cross-[operating
system/hardware] environment for code execution. And maybe JVM is a
poor choice but still worthy. Mono is interesting, too. Chances are,
stuff written in Java might be executed in Mono twenty years from now,
or twenty years after Java is gone from desktops (unless some DRM
stuff forbids it). There are some other choices but they don't belong
to this forum.

Uhm, yep I know, too long, too offtopic.
 
-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **



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