OpenWest 2015
6 - 9 May 2015 at Utah Valley University

I'm an engineer but I still carried away some tips on evaluating the feasibility of a project idea. Good food for thought!

Although the class was introductory, realizing how much data manipulation you can do with just a few commands is very inspiring! Great talk!

Thanks for everyone's feedback so far!

First, here's the correct link to the slides: http://dpashkevich.github.io/pres-lucid-angular/

I understand that the title of the talk may have set a different expectation for some listeners. I do have to say that our approach to building the app I was talking about was exactly how I outlined it: start small, refactor code as it grows, and try not to spend too much time thinking of what "the right way is" and/or arguing around terminology. I also tried to avoid walking through large pieces of code that often ends up being boring if you don't have enough context. Lastly, while our app handle massive amounts of data, the code isn't too complex, and I personally think it's great that we didn't overthink the front-end architecture.

That said, I agree that I could've found a way to talk more about our experience and less about Angular itself. @commenters: if possible, can you suggest the kinds of "advanced" or "enterprise-level" things you expected to hear at the talk? I would love to improve it in the future.

Being an architect track, it did lean towards PHP heavily and could have used more balance between languages. That said, it was great because it outlined not just that technical debt is bad but some causes for technical debt, i.e. code smells. The tools shown were great, it was really nice to see example output and what parameters were used to get the data set. I had already run across the website referenced for the tools shown, but it was great to be reminded of them again.

All in all a good talk, thanks for presenting.

I'm so glad you enjoyed the presentation! I hope you remember not to seed srand with time :)

This was a topic that was great fun to share, I find it an interesting mix of math, politics, and evil doers (Mwwwwhahahahaha!) I encourage you to take a look at Numberphile on youtube if you are interested in these subjects, specifically their talk on Dual_EC_DRBG https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulg_AHBOIQU&noredirect=1 . Their entire channel is filled with fun math topics like this one.

Thanks again for taking the time to join me and share your thoughts, it is most appreciated!

Huh. This was one of my top two or three talks at OpenWest. Admittedly I am pretty new to Angular, but I was really impressed by how organized and elegant the app he was showing was (at least, the code we were able to see). It definitely made me more excited about Angular, and I can think of several best practices and pitfalls he went over, but I guess the other commenters already knew those ones... sorry Dmitry I thought it was a great talk and you're a very good speaker.

P.S. I just went to check out the slides again and that is not the right link.

Thanks for coming, I'm glad you enjoyed the talk!

I agree, "Appeal to Tradition" or "Argumentum Ad Antiquitatem" is another very interesting fallacy. It's ripe for a "Fallacy of Fallacies" discussion as well. I'll certainly consider including it and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

You may find this https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/poster interesting if you are a big fan of logical fallacies. It's a poster that includes some of the most popular ones and it has always made me smile. Putting it up is an excellent conversation piece as well, a real learning opportunity.

Thanks again for your comments :)

Oh and for anyone paying attention thanks to the guys who corrected me on Pandas, I got that wrong in my talk and my slides, it's not a ML toolkit it's a math toolkit mea culpa.

Just to respond to Stu's comment which I think it great feedback thanks! I didn't want anyone to walk away feeling they wasted their time and I am sensitive to that so you have my sympathy. I tried to communicate the nature of my talk in the description.

I did rate this talk as a "Beginner's" talk in the OpenWest rating system and the description of the talk is at the end of this comment. I apologize that you left feeling unfulfilled but your description was exactly the point of the talk -- to give an survey/overview of the field to newcomers.

If you had wanted a deep dive on anything I was familiar with, I believe I indicated my willingness to stay as long as needed after the set time to answer questions. I will take you comment and improve my next talk thanks again!


"From old school Java-based toolkits like Weka to the latest and greatest toolkit for machine learning like Python Pandas, here's what you need to know for an introduction to the world of Big Data and Machine Learning. Geared towards students and professionals who need to understand the basics of this topic, we will present various concepts from cluster-based file systems, "Not Only SQL" Databases, Map Reduce algorithms and the range of tools for machine learning and data mining including Weka, Python Pandas, R and many other Python toolkits. "

I don't mind someone giving an "Intro to X" talk without being an expert. I don't mind other people stepping up to answer questions the speaker couldn't answer. It's not a big deal. It was a good enough intro. What I didn't like was all the self-deprecation and sad comments and the bit where the speaker presented code he didn't understand saying he had someone else write that piece. Those parts were lame. Next time fake it till you make it, and at least make sure you understand the code you're presenting inside and out, even if you can't answer every question people are going to have about Angular.