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Tag Archives: Statistical computing
PMean: A simple structure for documentation
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Everybody has different standards for documentation, and if you are already using a standard you like, don’t let me stop you. But if you’ve never used much documentation and decide that you need to do better, here’s a guideline that I developed. Continue reading
PMean: Grading rubric for computer assignments
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I’ve been teaching a variety of classes that require students to run a statistical analysis in a package like SAS or R and report the results. There is a tremendous variety of formats that students use, and I thought it would be helpful to offer some guidance. It would save me time in grading, but more importantly it would emphasize that students need to think about what they produce rather than just tossing together whatever comes out of the computer. The five requirements for homework assignments are they be complete, concise, clear, error-free, and interpretable. Continue reading
Recommended: The history of Hadoop
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If you want to understand big data, you need to understand Hadoop. Hadoop is the technology underlying many big data efforts. But most of the descriptions of Hadoop are jargon laden and impenetrable to newcomers. Well, maybe just impenetrable to this newcomer. But one great revelation to me was a historical note as to WHY there was a need to develop Hadoop. It was all those pages that had to be indexed by search engines at Google and Yahoo. So I went out to try to find more details. This article, with a ton of references throughout, is an excellent introduction to the precursors to Hadoop, the development of Hadoop itself, and the explosion of systems that used Hadoop as their foundation. Continue reading
PMean: What greedy means to a geek
I’ve run across the term “greedy” in several work related contexts, so I thought it might be worth explaining what it means. Continue reading
PMean: Minimum standards for a github repository
Using a github repository is new to me, and I need to document some things that may be obvious to more experienced programmers. Here are, as far as I understand it, the minimal documentation standards for a github repository. Continue reading
PMean: A megabyte is not a million bytes
Sometimes you forget things. Here’s an example. Continue reading
PMean: Using version control through git, github, and R Studio
I’m definitely “old school” when it comes to programming, but there comes a time when even this old dog needs to learn a new trick. I decided yesterday to use version control for my own R programs. Nothing for clients, mind you, because of confidentiality concerns, but the R code that I use to develop teaching examples is certainly fair game. I’m not totally clueless on version control because of my work for the Greater Plains Collaborative, but it’s a different thing to do it totally by yourself. Here’s a brief outline of what I needed to do to get version control up and running. Continue reading
PMean: The data structure in i2b2
I’m working with the Greater Plains Collaborative on a research project and my work requires me to understand the underlying data structure of a system known as i2b2. It’s not a difficult data structure, but it is uncommon, so it is worthwhile to document what is going on. Continue reading
PMean: The need for documentation standards
I’m working in a team programming environment and I would have to characterize the quality of the documentation as uneven. I’m going to make the case for having detailed documentation standards at a meeting tomorrow. Here’s the a general overview of what I will say. Continue reading