Curry On
Amsterdam!
July 16-17th, 2018


Transducing for fun and profit
Simon Belak
Metabase

@sbelak

Abstract

Transducers – composable algorithmic transformation decoupled from input or output sources – are Clojure’s take on data transformation. In this talk we will look at what makes a transducer; push their composability to the limit chasing the panacea of building complex single-pass transformations out of reusable components (eg. calculating a bunch of descriptive statistics like sum, sum of squares, mean, variance, … in a single pass without resorting to a spaghetti ball fold); explore how the fact they are decoupled from input and output traversal opens up some interesting possibilities as they can be made to work in both online and batch settings; all drawing from practical examples of using Clojure to analize “awkward-size” data.

Bio

Built my first computer out of Lego bricks and learned to program soon after. Emergence, networks, modes of thought, limits of language and expression are what makes me smile (and stay up at night). The combination of lisp and machine learning put me on the path of always striving to make myself redundant if not outright obsolete. Currently working hard to become obsolete at Metabase where I am trying to build an artificial data scientist and imbue visualisations with understanding and context.