An old dog meets a snake

One of the phrases that I hear now that would have left me mystified 10 years ago is "Big Data". I'm not going to pretend that its a totally transparent concept to me now, but I think I'm starting to get a feel for what it is. I certainly do have more than a passing interest in the concept that data (big) contains messages and that teasing these messages out can provide interesting and sometimes valuable insights.

I've grown up (or old) with spreadsheets. I'm definitely old enough to remember using Lotus 1-2-3 (whether I would remember how to use it is another matter altogether...) and, for the past 20-odd years, Excel. Over those years I've crunched a lot of columns and rows and, once in a while, got data to tell me stuff I didn't know. Those of us that fire up Excel every day will know that it has its limitations - some of which can be overcome with VBA and other add-ins. Over the past couple of years I've decided to try to extend myself beyond the spreadsheet a bit.

Everything I read and heard was telling me that the next thing was a beast called Python. It is, so "they" say the choice of the Data Scientist (whoever "they" are and whatever a Data Scientist is). In itself that's quite a daunting recommendation. It infers that you need a white lab coat to understand it. What I quickly realised was that it's the recommended choice for 2 main reasons. The first is that it's mildly intuitive (very high level) insofar as it's fairly forgiving and lacks lots of obscure curly braces. The second reason is that it's supported by a vast online community that share their solutions FOR FREE!! Just tap "how do I do XYZ" into your search engine and very quickly you'll find a number of solutions that you can just butcher into your own coding project. It's like a permanent open-book exam - you just need to ask the right questions. There are even free data-sets to let your programs loose on.

I'm very fortunate in many respects, but one of those respects is that I work for a firm (Aberdeen Standard Investments) that supports and encourages ongoing professional development. So, when I asked whether I could do a course to learn the rudiments of Python they found me one and paid for it. And it's that week-long "Introduction to Python" course that I'm just finishing today. It's been the first bit of structured education that I've done since the post-Punk era.

Aside from learning some of the basics of Python, it's been an interesting experience from a personal perspective. When you get to my level of experience (i.e. old), even in a very diverse job you tend to know what you're doing. Most issues that present themselves tend to resemble things you've seen before. One can draw on experience as well as a store of knowledge to solve an issue. One does learn things, but that learning is incremental and gradual. I suspect one could call it a comfort zone. This experience, my week-long course, has taken me a long way from that comfort zone. In fact it's blindfolded me, stuffed me in the boot and dropped me in the middle of comfort nowhere with just a laptop and internet connection. I'm far and away the oldest person in the 10-person class. Some of the people here seem to have a "data background" - which I guess I have albeit somewhat indirect.

I'd make a few observations. Firstly, intensive learning is tiring! 5 hours of coding examples involves a high level of focused concentration and that's unbelievably tiring. Each night I've arrived home with very little left in the mental energy tank. Secondly, I've found it enormously rewarding. Debugging code is fiddly but when your hangman game finally works or you can spot patterns in the fates of Titanic passengers it's fantastically rewarding. You just want to show everyone - "look - look - it doesn't break of you enter a space instead of a word!!!". The guys who told me that Python is a forgiving, intuitive language are clearly not fully human - one square bracket where a round one is needed can take ages to find.

So it's been an enormously rewarding week. I've come away thinking of ways I can use my new-found skills in my day job. I'm also pretty keen to keep on learning on how to apply and develop my "skills". I'm not sure Google or Twitter will be knocking on my door any time soon and I don't think I'll be browsing for a natty Data Scientist white lab coat in the next few months but I do think I've expanded the things I can do. More rewarding is the feeling that, as a 50+ bloke, I managed to navigate the territory outside my comfort zone without having a meltdown. It's good to know you can keep learning and that learning can be fun (even joyful). You can teach an old dog a few new tricks - even a bit of snake charming.