Alteryx for Statisticians- to use or not to use? - statistics

Is anyone a statistician and using alteryx? I’m wondering if anyone has experience with this or anything to say regarding statisticians using alteryx versus SAS or R. Also, If so, is there a way to conduct statistical tests writhing alteryx.

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Is it possible to use Excel Solver outside of the Excel Application?

Excel solver is amazing and wondering if its possible to incorporate the Solver functionality into a web based app instead of keeping everything in Excel. My guess is no because solver solutions are cell based.
On second thought, there is probably a similar solver available with python.
It is possible, but extremely far fetched. You would have to set up Excel on the web server, which makes crazy things to the licensing. Once there, you will have to run Excel in a separate process, but control it from your web app. Using interop in .net might be the least stupid way of doing this.
So just a couple of links to point you in the right direction:
https://www.solver.com/frontline-systems-releases-next-generation-solver-add-in-optimization-excel-online-and-excel-2016
The last few paragraphs point out that you can use the solver with RASOn, JSON C++, R, Python etc in your own apps so that is an option for you.
https://www.solver.com/
Is the homepage of the company that provides the Solver, and access to the more powerful version that exceeds the built-in version in Excel - good though that is. I have not needed the larger version - just turned a model or two around to reduce the computing needs.

Cucumber feature file in an excel spreadsheet

I would like to know if it is possible to have an excel spreadsheet that contains Gherkin statements and then convert it to a cucumber feature file. I have looked extensively on the internet and I have not been able to find anything related to this. I did find some forums where it is mentioned that this may not be possible. I am pretty new to cucumber and I would like to know whether it can be done. I also found that with spec-flow (cucumber for .NET) it is possible. But I am using cucumber with Java.
I would appreciate it if someone can give me some guidance regarding this.
Thank you
I haven't seen any tool that support this.
To me, it sounds like you would need a pre-process that extracts the scenarios from their storage in an Excel file.
The answer to your question, "is it possible to have an excel spreadsheet that contains Gherkin statements and then convert it to a cucumber feature file" is yes. But I am not aware of any tool. You probably have to write it yourself.
We have done one implementation where we extracted all the scenarios from JIRA tool. The scenarios were the acceptance criteria and then copied same in Feature file.
To answer your question, we have not done so far, but you may need to write a separate code for same.

Sentiment analysis from scratch

I want to create a sentiment analysis tool from scratch. It doesn't have to be highly complicated. I want to understand the techniques (even if they are quite basic and don't include the latest and the greatest) and be able to code them without using libraries. Can anyone, please, point me the right sources?

How to use data driven framework in cucumber to access external files such as excel or data base

I'd like to perform my tests using Cucumber + Excel to store my data. I don't want to keep my data stored on the procedure files. Is there a way to do this?
Yes, this is possible.
What you need to do is to implement reading the data in your step implementations.
If you are using the data from Excel to setup the system under test, then read in the steps that prepare the system.
If you are using steps for verifying the outcome, then read the Excel files in the steps you execute from your then steps.
There, at least, is one possible issue with doing it like this. It may not be easy to validate your scenarios by reading the feature file since the scenarios depend on data that may be hard to read at the same time. So while it may seem like a great idea to combine cucumber and Excel, it may not be so great.
Cucumber is a tool for automating BDD. At the core of BDD is communication between devs, tester and business people. The feature files are used for communication by describing, easy to understand and agree upon, examples. These examples might be obfuscated using the Cucumber + Excel approach.
This is a route I personally would avoid.

What would you switch to using instead of excel in a corporate workplace, when you aren't a programmer by trade?

I have a friend that is working on a company without any real IT people, and they've gone the classical corporate route of stringing things together with Excel macros whenever they need something. I was trying to figure out what alternatives are available for someone that isn't a programmer by trade.
What is an easy alternative to Excel when you want to distribute data offline together with forms for manipulating it, that doesn't have a steep learning curve? I was going to suggest he learn Python and SQL-lite, but I'm hoping StackOverflow can come up with a wiser answer.
Honestly, for non developers (and if you do not have a dev staff in-house) there really isn't anything wrong with Excel.
That being said, Lightswitch is a new and fairly interesting option for basic forms over data work (although it's still a bit green).
IMO once you go down the route of languages like Python, etc. you're really looking at someone who is going to have to be a programmer (and they may be shooting themselves in the foot on a regular basis).
In that type of environment users end up with Excel or Access to manipulate data. Excel is convenient where cells in row are calculated the same way, but with exceptional cases. Access is better for calculating over multiple rows easily, data management forms (yes Excel can do it too, but Access is easier) and formatted reports.
The best situation I've arrived at in this type of environment is standing up read only "data warehouse" that Excel and Access users can link or download data from to manipulate on their own. For this situation SQL Server is probably the right choice and I use quotes around "data warehouse" because I don't mean it in the technical sense, but rather just a convenient repository. That way you have one definitive system of record. Then any report generated in either tool repeatedly becomes a candidate for incorporation into that warehouse.

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