
PyData: A community for developers and users of open source data tools - tomrod
https://pydata.org/
======
pixelmonkey
"PyData is an educational program of NumFOCUS, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity."

They put on the PyData conferences across the world -- for example, PyData NYC
2019 was last week[1].

Profit from the conferences goes toward supporting NumFOCUS programs,
including many open source projects[2].

Little-known fact: despite the name, PyData is not just a community for
Python. Though Python is probably the largest sub-community within the PyData
umbrella, PyData actually covers the Julia and R communities, as well. This is
similar to how Jupyter Notebooks, and the parent Jupyter project, though very
commonly used by Python data analysts, are also used by R and Julia
programmers. In fact, Jupyter is a kind of portmanteau for "(Ju)lia, (Pyt)hon,
and (R)".

If your company is looking to hire people comfortable with an open source data
analysis stack -- while also supporting the good cause of scientific and data-
oriented open source projects -- then you should consider forwarding
sponsorship information from PyData's website[3] to a relevant hiring or
marketing manager.

[1]:
[https://pydata.org/nyc2019/schedule/](https://pydata.org/nyc2019/schedule/)

[2]: [https://numfocus.org/sponsored-projects](https://numfocus.org/sponsored-
projects)

[3]: [https://pydata.org/sponsor-pydata/](https://pydata.org/sponsor-pydata/)

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kfk
Just wanted to say few random things here. I have been moving my team of 8
analysts from Alteryx to Python/Jupyter for data analytics and preparation.
While things have been a bit rough we are happy with how easy is to use those
tools. A lot of this infrastructure makes sense and it’s b/s free (which is
not the case of tools like Alteryx). We have been able to run parallel
executions, automated triggered data flows, email notifications, ETL!, pdf
reporting with Latex, and more. We can tell prospective students that want to
work with us to check out our open source library on github and learn a bit of
python before the interview. Students love this stuff because it’s free and
there is abundant information on the web. I fear the day I am promoted or move
to other company and have to go back to stuff like

What’s the catch? Alteryx and the like dedicate enormous budgets to marketing
and sales. It’s hard to convince companies that open source data tools are
actually a lot better than the expensive enterprise stuff. Indeed even in my
company it’s still hard to get people on board with Python even though we are
one of the best teams doing analytics.

~~~
mmsimanga
I have worked in BI most of my life and concur with your sentiments. I have a
slightly different take on the whole commercial vs Open Source. I think
organisations should embrace both and make them both first class citizens. In
BI space I would say go with Tableau/Power BI/Cognos for all your day to day
dashboards and reporting but don't try use Tableau to create printed reports
(still requirement in some industries). Tableau wasn't designed to create
print PDF reports. Go with an Open Source solution like Jasper Reports[0] or
BIRT[1] to create the printed reports. The essence of what I am saying is
companies should use Open Source to fill in gaps not covered by the commercial
software. Commercial software is good for end users. Commercial companies
provide manuals and training is available from partner organisations. This
means a lot for none technical users.

[0][https://community.jaspersoft.com/](https://community.jaspersoft.com/)
[1][https://www.eclipse.org/birt/](https://www.eclipse.org/birt/)

~~~
Vaslo
Any reporting software like this based in Python?

~~~
mmsimanga
I am not aware of tools similar to BIRT and Jasper Reports in Python.

My observation is the world has moved on from Crystal Reports type tools to
Tableau like tools. BIRT and Jasper Reports were created at a time when Java
was dominant and I don't see anyone creating similar tools going forward.
That's my two cents.

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xvilka
Isn't NumFOCUS also the sponsor of the Julia language and infrastructure?

~~~
xapata
They do a fair bit.

