DATA 419: Machine Learning I

For those who have never used git before (or are rusty), you should study this quick intro and cheat sheet that ChatGPT and I put together for you today.

When composing a README file, the question to ask is: if someone you’ve never met were to clone your repo and investigate it, and they read your README file as a starting point, would they know what to do? I think at a minimum, you’d need to describe what your data set is, what each of the tables and columns means, and how to use pull_all.py and load.py.

Well, I guess there was no point in taking that end-of-class vote yesterday after all. The official UMW Room Planning People™ say that we cannot reserve room 054 for our time slot moving forward. There is a meeting in there at 3pm on some days, evidently, so we actually lucked out getting it for our full class period yesterday.

So, we’ll be back in room 025 beginning next Tuesday and forevermore. The good news is that the facilities people wrote back about my ticket, and said, quote:

The following Action Taken is logged for the work order:
Reset chiller. Sorry for the inconvenience. Chiller is running normal at this time. HVAC

So fingers crossed, I think we’ll be okay.

See you in our original room on Tuesday.

The biggest hiccup I’ve seen students experiencing on homework #0 isn’t anything to do with data or Python, but about how to find your way around your filesystem. Here is a hopefully helpful guide for Windows and Mac users to get down these basics. (Linux users probably don’t need any help with that, but if you do feel free to ask me.)

Due to the heat in 025, we’ll meet in room 054 (the opposite side of the basement) instead tomorrow.

One thing I can’t stand about that room is that for lectures, students tend to still sit at the tables facing the table instead of facing the instructor, which means they miss much of what’s going on. I’ll have a practical procedure to get everyone oriented correctly tomorrow.

For those students unfamiliar with Pandas, I have created a Pandas cheat sheet that covers the very basics of what you need to know to be functional. Please read!

The book has plenty of lab exercises at the end of each chapter. You’re welcome to read those if you want, but you’re going to get much better practice with Python just doing the assignments for this class. All I’m really counting on you reading for chapter 2, for example, is pp.15-39.

A couple of things (which I just learned) about Windows and VS Code:

1. You need to set the correct Python interpreter. To do this, you type Ctrl-Shift-P, then “Python: Select interpreter” and choose “Select interpreter path…”. Then, navigate to the virtual environment you created, drill down into its “Scripts” folder, and then choose python.exe. Helpfully, VS Code will remember this setting whenever it starts back up after being closed.
2. In order to run a Python file that takes arguments (like the Python practice assignment does), you’ll need to get your Terminal to be “in” the correct folder. To do this, you’ll execute the cd command in the VS Code Terminal, typing something like this:

   cd "C:\Users\joeblow\classes\DATA 419\homeworks"
   

   substituting, of course, the actual path to your actual Python file. Unhelpfully, VS Code will not remember this setting whenever it starts back up after being closed. So you might want to copy that command somewhere safe so you can copy/paste instead of re-discovering and re-typing from scratch each time.

This has been a public service announcement.

A practice assignment has been posted, and can net you up to +20XP! It’s due on September 8th.

You might not realize this from where you sit, but it’s darn challenging for professors to learn 50-75 new names and faces every semester. And that’s without dealing with jet lag complications!

One of the ways I expedite learning students’ names is practicing. (Some might call this “cheating.” I call those people “haters.”) I download everybody’s “mug shot” from Banner, and run through the faces like flash cards, gradually learning to associate a name with a face.

It used to be that all Banner students had a mug shot, period. (I think it’s the pic that appears on our EagleOne card.) But for the past few years, I’ve noticed that there are plenty of gaps where for some mysterious reason no picture is registered with you in the Banner system. We actually aren’t too bad — 15 out of 18 have pics, for both CPSC’ers and DATA’ers..

So why am I telling you this? Because you can earn another easy and valuable +1XP by providing me with a mug shot (meaning, a portrait of you looking fairly normal doing something interesting (or not) but most importantly: your face fully visible on the portrait. It can be a silly snapshot or your prom dress from high school: I just need a face to go with your name, man.)

For students who already have such a Banner mug shot, you have already been proactively awarded the aforementioned +1XP on the scoreboard. If not, you can still claim this point if you follow these three directions:

1. Make sure you’ve entered your name and a super clever and secret alias on the class scoreboard.
2. Once you’ve done that, and you believe you have a perfectly good picture in Banner for you, and I just need you to send me an email with subject line “DATA 419: Stephen, get the Banner mugshot” and I will download and add it to my collection, then award you the point.
3. If you don’t have a mug shot in Banner at all, I feel like the best way is to contact the Registrar about taking a snapshot of which they evidently forgot.
4. Finally, if you don’t want to futz around with Banner and the Registrar, just send me an email attachment of a recent photo that shows your entire face and all outwardly distinguishable appearances. For this email, use subject line “DATA 419: Stephen, here’s a mug shot for me!”

When I receive any of the above emails, I will do my best to get their point awarded and their picture & name added to my little black book.

Oh, and one other thing: this is due before class on Thursday of this week. It’s not a hard task, it’s just remembering to do it.