Publications by Ari Lamstein
Why I’m Switching to Polars
I recently decided to switch from Pandas to Polars for my Python projects that use dataframes. I came to this decision while taking a workshop on Polars last week: I found its syntax to be so intuitive that I couldn’t justify continuing to try to get “better” at Pandas, despite Pandas being the more established library. The fact that Polars i...
10556 sym R (463 sym/7 pcs) 10 img
Request for Resources: Teaching Computer Science Basics to R Programmers
One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is teaching R to our incoming analysts. These analysts are largely recent college graduates with a limited background in computer science and statistics. Historically my job has been to teach them the basics of the Tidyverse over 3 half-days. I’m writing today to see if anyone can recommend some resources...
4202 sym
New package on CRAN: zctaCrosswalk
I am happy to announce that my new R package, zctaCrosswalk, is now on CRAN. This package contains the US Census Bureau’s 2020 ZCTA to County Relationship File, as well as convenience functions to translate between States, Counties and ZIP Code Tabulation Areas (ZCTAs). You can install the package like this: install.packages("zctaCrosswalk") This...
2368 sym R (65 sym/2 pcs) 2 img
choroplethr 3.7.1 is now on CRAN
When I took my first software engineering job at Electronic Arts 20 years ago someone told me “More time is spent maintaining old software than writing new software.” Since my project at the time (“Spore”) was brand new, and I was writing brand new code for it, I found that hard to believe. My experience with my R package choroplethr, how...
3244 sym 2 img
choroplethr v3.0.0 is now on CRAN
Today I am happy to announce that version 3.0.0 of my R mapping package choroplethr is now available from CRAN. To get it, you can simply type: install.packages("choroplethr") from an R console. If you don’t know what any of this means then I recommend taking Coursera’s excellent R Programming class 🙂 The most notable change in version 3....
3257 sym R (1215 sym/7 pcs) 16 img
choroplethrZip v1.3.0: easier demographics, national maps
Introduction choroplethr v3.0 is now available on github. You can get it by typing # install.packages("devtools") library(devtools) install_github('arilamstein/[email protected]') Version 1.3.0 has two new features: Data frame df_zip_demographics contains eight demographic statistics about each ZIP Code Tabulated Area (ZCTA) in the US. Data com...
1105 sym R (831 sym/3 pcs) 20 img
choroplethr v3.1.0: Better Summary Demographic Data
Today I am happy to announce that choroplethr v3.1.0 is now on CRAN. You can get it by typing the following from an R console: install.packages("choroplethr") This version adds better support for summary demographic data for each state and county in the US. The data is in two data.frames and two functions. The data.frames are: ?df_state_demograp...
3380 sym R (31 sym/1 pcs) 14 img
Upcoming Tutorial: Analyzing US Census Data in R
Today I am pleased to announce that on May 21 I will run a tutorial titled Analyzing US Census Data in R. While I have spoken at conferences before, this is my first time running a tutorial. My hope is that everyone who participates will learn something interesting about the demographics of the state, county and ZIP code that they are from. Along...
1514 sym 4 img
Tutorial Recap: Analyzing Census Data in R
A big thanks to Gabriela de Quieroz for organizing the San Francisco R-ladies Meetup, where I spent a few hours yesterday introducing people to my census-related R packages. A special thanks to Sharethrough as well, for letting us use their space for the event. It was my first time running a tutorial like this, and I spent a while thinking a...
2136 sym 4 img
Welcome to AriLamstein.com!
Today I am happy to announce that I have migrated my blog from JustAnRBlog.wordpress.com to AriLamstein.com. I thought I would give an inside peek into the change in case others have an interest. Also, I would personally like to see more R packages and blogs, and I hope that this post can encourage others to take the plunge. I created JustAnRBlog...
3320 sym 4 img