SyPy THIS THURSDAY: Making R restfully enterprising with Django - Richard Volpato

SyPy: Sydney Python Users group meetup 6 Jan 2010

6:15: Arrive
6:30: Lightning talks (email me, or just bring a 5min talk along)
6:45: Making R restfully enterprising with Django - Richard Volpato
7:40 Social networking and beers and dinner nearby

*RSVP: Please RSVP so we have an idea of numbers* via =
http://sypy.eventbrite.com/

Main Talk summary
Using, mostly Python, the challenge of this project was to offer =20
within an intranet, a RESTful  'statistical service' powered by R (a =20
statistical language).   This =91service=92  (to crunch a lot of usage =20=

data from across Australia) had to communicate securely and reliably =20
with other systems, schedule and prioritize requests of its services, =20=

and of course, enable users to select and filter the data through =20
interactive graphs in the browser.
The components of this system include, beyond a specialised R package =20=

(CAL-R):
      =95 MySql as a data store;
      =95 Django, as the application server dealing with workflow, page =20=

delivery and tracking;
      =95 Django-Piston, making the whole service available as a =20
=91RESTful service=92 to the business.
      =95 Connections to R via Pyper (a piping system that maps R =20
objects into Python objects and vice versa).  T
      =95 Load and composition of tasks for CAL-R,  controlled by a =20
queuing/scheduling system based on RabbitMQ and Django Celery
      =95 Formatting and user manipulation of objects on the page (eg =20=

drag and drop, select etc) is delivered via jQuery (a JavaScript =20
framework) and
      =95 Protovis (a JavaScript implementation of =91ggplot=92 style =20=

graphics) renders custom interactive graphs in the browser (note: not =20=

just a pdf!).

Biography
Richard Volpato, born in Italy, studied at ANU and Cambridge (UK) =20
mostly sociology and social research.  He has also consulted across a =20=

large number of industries, notably forestry, tourism, superannuation, =20=

education, health, religion and urban/regional planning, the last of =20
which led  (via Zope Corporation) to a successful tender for the =20
Victorian Government Planning scheme amendments system (ZAPP: Zope =20
Amendment Production Platform).  His current role at the Copyright =20
Agency as Manager of Data Quality and Analysis has been to improve =20
data quality, its value and the systems used to acquire and process it

Getting There: See the eventbrite page for details - =
http://sypy.eventbrite.com
Free free to join us at the pub after/instead.
If have any problems call Dylan Jay on 0421477460



---
Dylan Jay
Plone Solutions Manager. www.pretaweb.com
P +612 80819071   M +61421477460
skype - dylan_jay    twitter - djay75

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