What story could this image tell?
Use your imagination to write the opening of a short story or poem inspired by this illustration.
Post it in the comments, then read the related article to find out what this image is all about.
Find many more ways to use our Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan.
adjective: having a quality that thrusts itself into attention
adjective: (of angles) pointing outward at an angle of less than 180 degrees
adjective: represented as leaping (rampant but leaning forward)
noun: (military) the part of the line of battle that projects closest to the enemy
_________
The word salient has appeared in 83 articles on NYTimes.com in the past year, including on March 13 in “The Luckiest Team in the Country Needs a Little More” by Billy Witz:
Greensboro has a 28-6 record — the best in program history — and finished second in the Southern Conference, behind Wofford, which was ranked 20th in this week’s Associated Press poll.
Did luck have something to do with it?
Miller, pulling up a folding chair before a recent practice, reacted as one might expect. He praised Pomeroy as “a genius,” expressed fascination with analytics and said there were others on his staff who delve deeper into the data to provide the most salient information about the Spartans and their opponents.
Then he assumed a defensive stance.
“I’m not a mathematician,” he said. “I’m a basketball coach who’s always trying to figure out an edge to help me coach better. But there’s never been anybody that could put a number on will and togetherness of group.
_________
Above is an image related to one of the news stories we followed this past week. Do you know what it shows? At the bottom of this quiz, you’ll find the answer.
Have you been paying attention to the news recently? See how many of these 10 questions you can get right.
Imagine you could live your life without experiencing pain. Not quite as a superhero, you wouldn’t be super strong — you just wouldn’t feel any pain, physical or emotional. Ever.
Would you choose that life?
In “At 71, She’s Never Felt Pain or Anxiety. Now Scientists Know Why.,” Heather Murphy writes:
She’d been told that childbirth was going to be painful. But as the hours wore on, nothing bothered her — even without an epidural.
“I could feel that my body was changing, but it didn’t hurt me,” recalled the woman, Jo Cameron, who is now 71. She likened it to “a tickle.” Later, she would tell prospective mothers, “Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as people say it is.”
It was only recently — more than four decades later — that she learned her friends were not exaggerating.
Rather, there was something different about the way her body experienced pain: For the most part, it didn’t.
Scientists believe they now understand why. In a paper published Thursday in The British Journal of Anaesthesia, researchers attributed Ms. Cameron’s virtually pain-free life to a mutation in a previously unidentified gene. The hope, they say, is that the finding could eventually contribute to the development of a novel pain treatment. They believe this mutation may also be connected to why Ms. Cameron has felt little anxiety or fear throughout her life and why her body heals quickly.
The author discusses how Ms. Cameron was discovered by scientists:
The sequence of events that led scientists to investigate Ms. Cameron’s genes began about five years ago. She was living a happy, ordinary life on the banks of Loch Ness in Scotland with her husband, she said. After a hand operation, a doctor seemed perplexed that she was not experiencing any pain and did not want painkillers.
“I guarantee I won’t need anything,” Ms. Cameron recalled telling Dr. Devjit Srivastava, a consultant in anesthesia and pain medicine at a National Health Service hospital in northern Scotland and one of the authors of the paper.
A few follow-up questions revealed that Ms. Cameron was unusual. At 65, she’d needed to have her hip replaced. Because it had not caused her pain, she had not noticed anything was amiss until it was severely degenerated. Cuts, burns, fractures — these did not hurt either. In fact, it often took the smell of burning flesh or her husband identifying blood for her to notice something wrong. She also reported that eating Scotch bonnet chili peppers left only a “pleasant glow.”
The article continues:
Scientists are also intrigued by Ms. Cameron’s extraordinarily low anxiety level. On an anxiety disorder questionnaire, she scored zero out of 21. She cannot recall ever having felt depressed or scared.
“I am very happy,” she said.
In retrospect, she sees how her genetic disposition may have aided her at work. After years as a primary-school teacher, she retrained to work with people with severe mental disabilities. Erratic, aggressive behavior never riled her, she said.
But though having this mutation may sound like a dream, there are downsides. One is that she is quite forgetful; prone to losing her keys and her train of thought midsentence. The other is that she’s never felt the “adrenaline rush” that other people talk about, she said.
Students, read the entire article, then tell us:
— Would you want to live a life without ever feeling pain — physical and psychological? What would be the advantages and disadvantages of a life without pain?
— How do you imagine your life would be different? In what ways might you be happier? What growth or development, stemming from anxiety or pain, might you have missed? Would you choose to live a pain-free life if it meant that you would never experience an adrenaline rush, as Ms. Cameron says she never has?
— What role has physical pain played in your life? Do you think you have a high or low threshold for pain? Tell us about a memorable experience with physical pain. Were you able to take something positive from the experience?
— In a related article, “The Value of Suffering,” Pico Iyer writes:
Wise men in every tradition tell us that suffering brings clarity, illumination; for the Buddha, suffering is the first rule of life, and insofar as some of it arises from our own wrongheadedness — our cherishing of self — we have the cure for it within. Thus in certain cases, suffering may be an effect, as well as a cause, of taking ourselves too seriously. I once met a Zen-trained painter in Japan, in his 90s, who told me that suffering is a privilege, it moves us toward thinking about essential things and shakes us out of shortsighted complacency; when he was a boy, he said, it was believed you should pay for suffering, it proves such a hidden blessing.
Do you agree? What life lessons can pain and suffering teach?
— By some estimates, tens of millions of Americans suffer from chronic pain. The global pain management drug industry is valued at over $58 billion. Should scientists and pharmaceutical companies investigate Ms. Cameron’s case in hopes of developing more effective treatments for pain? If scientists were successful in developing a pain intervention or vaccine, would you seek out this product? Would you choose to shield your children from physical or emotional pain?
Further Resources:
How Pain Tolerance and Anxiety Seem to Be Connected
Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
3. Before Microsoft’s new controller, how did the gamer community — especially gamers with disabilities — adapt video game technology to meet the needs of diverse users?
4. How has the Adaptive Controller affected the lives of gamers with disabilities like Ms. Hawley?
5. Why will the new controller’s versatility also be attractive to the broader community of gamers, including professional gamers, according to Bryce Johnson, Microsoft’s inclusive lead for product research and accessibility?
6. The article concludes with a quotation from Mark Barlet, a disabled Air Force veteran and founder of AbleGamers:
If you’re on the streets, everyone knows you’re a profoundly disabled individual. You can’t hide this fact. But in a video game, you’re a player. We all jump into video games for some level of fantasy.
Do you agree with Mr. Barlet? Are video games a way to escape the limitations of everyday life and jump into fantasy? What draws you to video games?
Finally, tell us more about what you think:
— What did you learn from the article? What was most interesting or surprising to you? In what ways do video games in general, and controllers in particular, meet or not meet your needs? Do you think you would want to use the Xbox Adaptive Controller?
— What role do video games have in your life? Do you consider yourself a gamer? Or are you just an occasional player? In what ways has gaming opened up new worlds for you? What life lessons has gaming taught you?
— How would you redesign your favorite game, console or controller to be more accessible to gamers with a range of different needs?
— In 2010, Congress passed the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, which requires companies to make computers, smartphones, gaming consoles and other technology accessible to people with disabilities. What industries, companies and products would you like to see create or redesign products to better meet the diverse needs of its users?
Other Resources
Video Games Are a Waste of Time? Not for Those With E-sports Scholarships
Welcome to the 21st century, where busy is the new norm. From youth, we’ve been told we can do anything, and that life is short – it’s no wonder that we’re constantly scrambling to fit it all in. We’ve been conditioned to want so much.
With our devices constantly in hand, we’re being told what to eat, where to holiday, how to decorate our homes, and why we should hike more. To add to that, we’re comparing ourselves to the ‘projected’ lives of our connections on social media, who selectively show off their bustling, exciting lifestyles. There’s an unspoken pressure to be busy, to demonstrate our zest for life, and avoid the perception that we may be lacking ambition, direction, or even work ethic.
Ultimately, we’re living creatures – subject to the limits
of our energy, and the routine of making an income. What we’re able to fit into
our days doesn’t always align with our expectations, and that’s when we get
down on ourselves for being ‘unproductive’. If your schedule is becoming too stressful,
with too little reward, it’s time to step back. Take the opportunity to
re-think not only your tactics for achieving your goals, but whether those goals
are actually worthwhile in the end.
So you’re a last-minute person. You may have
been using that line for years, but you owe it to yourself to prioritise organisation
– it’s not a natural born talent, but an easily learned skill. Organisation involves
a lot of ritual and routine, and while being a creature of routine sounds a
little dull, it’s actually liberating – it frees you from the anxiety that
comes with being unprepared, and gives you back time that would otherwise be
wasted.
If you’re serious about becoming more organised,
why not consider taking a course? There are free courses you can take online,
like the one delivered by Udemy, and
as well as paid courses with more extensive information. One 6-week course that
stands out is The Daily Map, created by
artist Nirrimi Firebrace, which gives you organisation tools and methods to
help you clear the path to becoming your most creative self. It’s also beautifully
illustrated – who said organisation couldn’t bring you joy and whimsy?
Why do some people cope with a hectic
schedule so gracefully, while others spiral into emotional turmoil? It’s all
about the way we perceive stress. There’s no concrete number of tasks that
constitute a stressful day, and while there are certain experiences that
commonly induce stress, it’s possible to remain cool-headed if you look at a situation
through a different lens.
Start by identifying what stresses you out,
and think about how you can normalise that experience. Repetition can help take
the stress out of a task, as can a bit of healthy comparison – the task may
feel difficult, but it doesn’t compare to such-and-such that you’ve experienced
previously. For more tips on reframing your perception of stress, health
psychologist Kelly McGonigal gave a great TED
talk on how to turn stress from an enemy into a friend.
Living in the ‘now’ has become a bit of a
buzz-phrase as of late, but this concept is the key to feeling relaxed, even
when you’re on a tight schedule. Once you’ve blocked out time in your schedule
to do a certain task, think of that time as a bubble, isolated from the rest of
the world, where there’s no past or future. If you’re thinking about what you
need to do next, or what you forgot to do earlier, you’re not reaping the emotional
benefits of the activity you’re engaging in.
To help you master this technique (which isn’t
always easy) the obvious first step is to switch off your devices when they’re
not necessary. Secondly, if any stray thoughts circle around in your mind when
it’s not their designated time – write them down. Transferring them from your
head to paper (physical or digital) allows you to relax, knowing your thoughts
are in safe-keeping. The fear of forgetting is the best way to throw off your
focus, so don’t let it mess with your priorities, or ruin your positive emotional
experiences.
Due to constant over-stimulation, our to-do
lists keep growing and growing with no clear direction. With little red
notifications popping up by the minute, begging for attention, how can we be
expected to get our priorities straight?
A great tool for creating clarity is a good
old fashioned notebook, where nothing can flash, pulse, or pop up at you. It’s
just you, your common sense, and a blank slate to sort through your goals. It’s
more manual effort than using a Word doc, but there’s something about the
pen-to-paper experience that really helps you connect the dots, and helps
information stick in your mind. So why not grab a coffee, sit down, and give it
a go – you’ll find that many of your goals are not as urgent as you think.
Every now and then, it’s wise to ask
yourself, should I pursue this goal at all? You may have decided on a whim that
something was worthwhile, but is it really? One of the best things you can do
for yourself is to write down a list of 5 things you want to achieve in your
life-span – things that make life worth living – and let that list be your
north star. Any task that doesn’t get you closer to these goals – let it go.
Life has a lot to offer. If you’re a person
who wants it all – that’s excellent – just make sure that you take time for
yourself. Sometimes it’s quality over quantity that wins in the end, no matter
what anyone thinks of you.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed fitting study into your lifestyle, don’t
hesitate to call a student advisor,
who can help you find a solution.
Our digital marketing experts – staff and students – have created this MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) as part of the Search and Social Media Marketing for International Business module. It can guide you to develop your individual as well as professional online profile, with a view to enhancing international trade prospects.
Individuals will benefit by having a better-informed digital online profile for career development. Businesses will learn how to develop a more robust online presence and engage with international audiences to enhance international trade prospects.
The MOOC comprises twelve videos which contain theoretical background from academic staff, as well as industry insights from key professional speakers. Each video is accompanied by activities, which will help you to put your newfound knowledge into practice. In line with the principle of open online access, this MOOC is free for you to follow.
Follow these steps:
1. Before you start the course please complete this short MOOC entrance survey.
2. Follow the links below to the individual MOOC videos and activities
3. Share your experiences and learn from others on Twitter using our #passion4digital hash tag.
4. Complete our MOOC exit survey.
5. Take the next steps and become accredited with our support. Enquire about our study options:
This course was created by Business Innovation Project students on the MSc Marketing course at Salford Business School:
Pictured left to right: Luis Santos (from Portugal), Maria Camila Villa Jurado (from Colombia), Vanessa Van Huynh (from Vietnam) and Rebecca Lee (from the UK).
The following course in Research Methodology is provided in its entirety by Atlantic International University’s “Open Access Initiative” which strives to make knowledge and education readily available to those seeking advancement regardless of their socio-economic situation, location or other previously limiting factors. The University’s Open Courses are free and do not require any purchase or registration, they are open to the public.
The course inResearch Methodology contains the following:
The Administrative Staff may be part of a degree program paying up to three college credits. The lessons of the course can be taken on line Through distance learning. The content and access are open to the public according to the “Open Access” and ” Open Access ” Atlantic International University initiative. Participants who wish to receive credit and / or term certificate , must register as students.
Scientific research involves a systematic process that focuses on being objective and gathering a multitude of information for analysis so that the researcher can come to a conclusion. This process is used in all research and evaluation projects, regardless of the research method (scientific method of inquiry, evaluation research, or action research). The process focuses on testing hunches or ideas in a park and recreation setting through a systematic process. In this process, the study is documented in such a way that another individual can conduct the same study again. This is referred to as replicating the study. Any research done without documenting the study so that others can review the process and results is not an investigation using the scientific research process.
The scientific research process is a multiple-step process where the steps are interlinked with the other steps in the process. If changes are made in one step of the process, the researcher must review all the other steps to ensure that the changes are reflected throughout the process.
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As you probably already know, there are many reasons why research is done. But what are its purposes? Why bother with all the different styles, techniques, experiments and measurements?
Why did the first sailors, the ones before Columbus and Magellan, hop on their little canoes and paddle out? Humans naturally explore the world around them, wanting to learn about the planet we have labeled Earth.
Why did Hippocrates and Galen examine and write about the maladies of man? The need to describe and understand our world is found in even the youngest children.
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Once you have identified you research question, it is time to formulate your hypothesis. While the research question is broad and includes all the variables you want your study to consider, the hypothesis is a statement that specific relationship you expect to find from your examination of these variables.
As indicated above, it is better to have several simple hypotheses than one complex one. However, it is also a good idea to limit the number of hypotheses you use in a study to six or fewer. Studies that address more hypotheses than six will often be too time consuming to keep participants interested, and uninterested participants do not take the importance of their responses as seriously. Another advantage to limiting the number of formal hypotheses you formulate is that too many can make the discussion section of your paper very hard to write.
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Research methodology – Quantitative vs. Qualitative vs. Participatory/action research • Research methods – Methods of sampling, data collection and data analysis • Research design – Experimental, descriptive, exploratory Research design is the overall plan for connecting the conceptual research problems to the pertinent (and achievable) empirical research. • In other words, the research design articulates what data is required, what methods are going to be used to collect and analyse this data, and how all of this is going to answer your research question.
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Data can be divided into two types, namely quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative data is numerical in nature and can be mathematically computed . Quantitative data measure uses different scales, which can be classified as nominal scale, ordinal scale, interval scale and ratio scale. Nominal scale is used to categorize items into different group, for example male and female, different examination grades, different races in a country, different types of companies different shoe sizes and so on. The statistics that is used to analyze this type of data is mode.
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Lesson 6: What is a Theoretical Perspective?
No one perspective is best in all circumstances. The perspective one uses may depend upon the question being asked. If one is exploring bureaucratic organization, then one might like to use a perspective that is concerned with social order. On the other hand, if one is concerned with social inequality, then perhaps the conflict perspective is more useful.
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Lesson 7: Qualitative Research
Qualitative methods aim to make sense of, or Interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them Qualitative research may define preliminary questions which can then be addressed in Quantitative studies. A good qualitative study will address a clinical problem through a clearly formulated question and Analysis of qualitative data can and should be done using explicit
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Lesson 8: Data analysis in qualitative research
Unquestionably, data analysis is the most complex and mysterious of all of the phases of a qualitative project, and the one that receives the least thoughtful discussion in the literature. For neophyte nurse researchers, many of the data collection strategies involved in a qualitative project may feel familiar and comfortable. After all, nurses have always based their clinical practice on learning as much as possible about the people they work with, and detecting commonalities and variations among and between them in order to provide individualised care. However, creating a database is not sufficient to conduct a qualitative study. In order to generate findings that transform raw data into new knowledge, a qualitative researcher must engage in active and demanding analytic processes throughout all phases of the research.
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The research variables, of any scientific experiment or research process, are factors that can be manipulated and measured.
Any factor that can take on different values is a scientific variable and influences the outcome of experimental research.
Gender, color and country are all perfectly acceptable variables, because they are inherently changeable.
Most scientific experiments measure quantifiable factors, such as time or weight, but this is not essential for a component to be classed as a variable.
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Whenever a test or other measuring device is used as part of the data collection process, the validity and reliability of that test is important. Just as we would not use a math test to assess verbal skills, we would not want to use a measuring device for research that was not truly measuring what we purport it to measure. After all, we are relying on the results to show support or a lack of support for our theory and if the data collection methods are erroneous, the data we analyze will also be erroneous.
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We understand how busy adults do not have time to go back to school. Now, it’s possible to earn your degree in the comfort of your own home and still have time for yourself and your family. The Admissions office is here to help you, for additional information or to see if you qualify for admissions please contact us. If you are ready to apply please submit your Online Application and paste your resume and any additional comments/questions in the area provided. (Online Application) (Request Info)
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SWAYAM exams underway — tweeted by R. Subrahmanyam, India’s Education Secretary
In December 2018, 3,800 students flocked to exam centers across India to sit exams for courses taken on SWAYAM, India’s national MOOC platform. It was the first time SWAYAM exams were organized. And what made these special is that, although SWAYAM courses are offered online, they can lead to actual academic credit.
SWAYAM — that stands for Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds and means self in Hindi — is an online course provider first announced by the Government of India in August 2014, beta launched in August 2016, and fully launched in July 2017.
The platform is part of the Digital India initiative to empower the nation and its citizens through technology. Specifically, the platform goals are to facilitate access to quality education, support lifelong learning, and increase enrollments in India’s higher education.
On SWAYAM’s launch, Pranab Mukherjee, then President of India, stated: “internet has offered an opportunity to quell the divide in terms of access and quality […] digital modes are cheaper, more easily accessible, interactive, and offer flexibility […] We need to work together to ensure that they are widely adopted for teaching.”
With a catalog of 2,000 courses, SWAYAM is one of the world’s largest MOOC providers. The courses are taught by 1,250 instructors affiliated with 130 institutions, including:
Growth is incentivized by compensating faculty and staff for creating and running courses. For instance, according to the remuneration model issued by India’s Ministry of Human Resource Development, instructors are paid about $150 per hour spent teaching on camera.
To date, India has invested more than $33 million in SWAYAM. But despite this cost, the platform is open — SWAYAM courses are free to take.
(For more details about the platform and its origins, head to our previous articles. Class Central has been following SWAYAM’s development since it was announced back in 2014.)
But SWAYAM’s most distinctive feature isn’t its scale or openness, but rather its integration into India’s education system. Indeed, public higher education institutions in India may allow their students to complete up to 20% of their degree online by taking courses on SWAYAM.
SWAYAM’s credit system is laid out in the framework issued by the University Grants Commission, the organisation that oversees India’s higher education.
Twice a year, institutions pick SWAYAM courses they’ll grant credit for in the upcoming term. Note that they may pick courses offered by other institutions, allowing them to tap into the strengths of schools nationwide to build richer curricula. For instance, they may leverage SWAYAM to offer high-demand courses for which they lack qualified instructors on campus.
Students may then register for relevant, credit-eligible online courses and, upon completion, have them count toward their degree. Courses typically involve watching lectures, submitting assignments, and sitting an exam in one of the 1,000 exam centers established across India.
First @SWAYAMMHRD pen and paper examination for 39 ,@ugc_india swayam courses successfully conducted today at 50 centres all over India. Congratulations to UGC, Swayam and Mhrd teams and Best of Luck to the candidates appearing for swayam exam. pic.twitter.com/xwM8i6cTbb
— Dr (Mrs) Pankaj Mittal (@pankajugc) January 19, 2019
Registering for an exam may cost up to $15. But that fee is usually refunded if the student passes the exam.
As an emerging superpower that accounts for almost one fifth of the world’s population, India’s bet on MOOCs sends a strong message: integrating online and traditional education can help developing nations overcome challenges, such as:
And some developing nations have already taken heed of this message. In late 2018, India and Afghanistan signed a cooperation agreement to let Afghanistan institutions and students respectively offer and take courses on SWAYAM.
But beyond the developing world, integrating online and traditional education may also help developed nations seize opportunities, including:
And these opportunities resonate with the goals of leading actors in the MOOC world. In a talk titled Reimagine Education, Anant Agarwal, edX CEO and MIT professor, challenges institutions to “accept 25% of the credit” earned by a student at another institution.
SWAYAM shows one way toward that goal.
Last month, Codecademy and Warby Parker came together to work on a special Learn SQL from Scratch Capstone Project. It was during this time when I met Ryan Tuck, a Data Engineer at Warby, who played a major part in this partnership. So when he decided to drop by our office for the final QA round, I had to break out my notebook and ask some questions. Enjoy.
At Warby Parker, data engineers are responsible for creating and maintaining the plumbing required to support the data and reporting needs of the business. We use software engineering practices to automate the work of data cleaning, normalizing, and model building so that data is always ready to be consumed by data analysts in every department.
On data engineering, we use Python as our general purpose programming language, as do most of the other teams in our Technology department. When it comes to databases, we use PostgreSQL for the majority of our SQL needs, and are beginning to use Amazon Athena and Google BigQuery for some of our larger datasets. We use Looker as our exclusive business intelligence entry point to all of this data.
I’ve had the privilege of working with a lot of of smart people in every department at our company to help them solve their varied data needs, from reconciling financial data with the Accounting team to automating and modeling standardized performance metrics for our team of over 200 customer experience advisors.
As part of a team of five supporting the data needs of a rapidly growing company, I’ve tried where possible to focus on helping our analysts solve their own problems. This includes helping people learn Python and commit to our codebase, guiding the creation of data models in SQL, and encouraging people to submit pull requests to add features in Looker, our BI tool.
Seeing dozens of otherwise “non-technical” colleagues opening up PRs on a daily basis, and consequently being part of the democratization of tech that we value at Warby Parker, is probably the most rewarding “project” I’ve been a part of.
One project finished recently during our first annual “Hackweek” is called Pipes, which allows anyone at the company to easily move large amounts of data from wherever to wherever (Looker, Google Sheets, PostgreSQL, BigQuery, etc) on a regular cadence, or manually through a simple one-line chatbot interface. The adoption has been overwhelmingly positive and we’re looking to grow this sort of tooling out even more.
“We use software engineering practices to automate the work of data cleaning, normalizing, and model building so that data is always ready to be consumed by data analysts in every department.”
I’ve always been drawn to analytical fields like math, and became pretty proficient in Excel during some internships in college. Once I had learned to program and learned more about data science and its applications in artificial intelligence, I knew that anything I could do to immerse myself in the world of data would be a step in the right direction.
Three and a half years ago, I landed a job as a junior software engineer at Warby Parker not fully knowing what I was in for, but am so glad I got the opportunity to help build tools to support an interesting and ever-changing data-driven culture here.
I had a background in C++, and was exposed to Python through an Intro to Data Science course. When Warby Parker hired me onto the Data team in 2015, I had never written a SQL query in my life, but picked it up quickly and within a few months started up internal SQL training classes, which I still teach on a monthly basis.
This is Bayes’ Theorem, which is an equation that describes how to update probabilities given new evidence. Two summers ago I worked on building a tool to help predict weekly fantasy football performance. Some colleagues suggested a Bayesian approach would be appropriate, since there aren’t really enough data points in an NFL season to be able to use statistical approaches that require larger datasets, and I’d want to regularly update my predictions after each player’s latest performance.
I did a deep dive into understanding the (simple) math underlying Bayes’ Theorem and came out of that experience with a whole new worldview, understanding my entire knowledge of the world as a big and intricate probabilistic model that I was continuously updating with every experience I ever have. It was pretty transformative, and I figured that was worth a tattoo.
Donald Knuth said, “Premature optimization is the root of all evil.” I’ve generally found this to be true, and try to live by it in my work. For example, I’ll generally prefer to keep a data model simple by rebuilding it for all time on a daily basis using a single SQL query instead of making a more complicated model that requires iteratively adding to a table, keeping track of state, updated timestamps, when something last ran, etc.
A wise man once said, “Duplicating data makes things go fast,” but databases are already impressively fast to begin with, without implementing anything to improve performance. Ultimately, I almost always approach a problem thinking about optimizing for my time over machine time, for readability over performance, and for introducing as little cognitive overhead as is required by the problem at hand. Only once performance issues or readability issues present themselves will some code be worth a rewrite.
Sure! Have you ever written a query that yields some result set and you think, “I’d love to query the stuff I just produced like it was a table?” Enter the WITH clause.
Suppose I have a mega query that gives the transaction summaries:
select
transactions.date as transaction_date,
sum(items.price) as total_cost,
count(*) as number_of_items
from
transactions
inner join
customers
on
customers.id = transactions.customer_id
inner join
transaction_items
on
transactions.id = transaction_items.transaction_id
inner join
items
on
items.id = transaction_items.item_id
Using WITH, I can create a temporary table within my query that I can SELECT from and treat it just like a regular old table.
I will put everything from the previous query in a parentheses and use WITH to give it the name transaction_summaries.
Then I’ll apply the date and customer filtering down below for a more readable query, to separate out all the JOIN logic from the actual WHERE filters that I want to apply on that data.
with transaction_summaries as (
select
transactions.date as transaction_date,
sum(items.price) as total_cost,
count(*) as number_of_items
from
transactions
inner join
customers
on
customers.id = transactions.customer_id
inner join
transaction_items
on
transactions.id = transaction_items.transaction_id
inner join
items
on
items.id = transaction_items.item_id
)
select
*
from
transaction_summaries
where
first_name = 'beyonce'
and
transaction_date > '2018–01–01'
order by
total_cost desc
limit
5
If you’re familiar with subqueries, this does a similar thing but makes the SQL far more readable, even if your query isn’t quite as performant as it would have been. This is essentially an implementation of the mantra “Don’t Repeat Yourself” that’s common in the world of programming.
Huge shout out to Ryan and the whole Warby Parker team for making this partnership happen. Special hat tips for behind-the-scenes support from:
It’s been an absolute pleasure. And of course, the fam at Codecademy. You know who you are. Couldn’t do it without you.
