Data Analysis Intro

[JW_NZ]

 

BTW, I've never had the opportunity to use R; does it not support AppleScript in some way? That should make the task of "interfacing FM with the R commands" much easier (on the Mac OS X platform).

 

Hi Michael,

 

I've seen that R does indeed have an AppleScript dictionary but, as I'm no AS guru, that's as far as I've gone.

 

Unfortunately, there is no AS dictionary for RStudio, a popular UI for R.

 

Regards,

 

John

[jbante]

I felt very validated in my intra-FileMaker leanings by reading a paper on technical debt associated with machine learning put out by Google, including:

 

When we recognize that a mature system might end up being (at most) 5% machine learning code and (at least) 95% glue code, reimplementation rather than reuse of a clumsy API looks like a much better strategy.

[cchaski]

This is a most welcome forum: thank you jbante very much for starting it!

I have been using Filemaker for computational linguistics since 1995 because it was the only database I could find that was truly cross-platform (Mac/Windows) at the time (mySQL came later). I use SPSS for my statistical analysis, and for some of my modules I have been able to implement the magic numbers (ie coefficients) from SPSS into the Filemaker scripts.

 

But what I REALLY want is linear discriminant function analysis with two-class classification INSIDE Filemaker. I do not know how to code the math, so I end up exporting into Excel, then importing into SPSS. I have not used R. I can do some programming in Python but I have not really used numpy --although I am interested in this option too. DTREG is a great machine learning analysis tool written in C, and I have wondered if it would be possible to write FM plugins from DTREG, but I don't know how to do this. I have stayed with SPSS because I find that it is more precise than other tools; i.e. I get better classification accuracy wiht SPSS discriminant function analysis than I do with other tools.

 

I am using IWP (still using 12 Server Advanced and 12 Pro), so the exporting is a pain (have to use Remote Scripter, etc etc), so that my modules can be web-accessible to research affiliates in other countries.

 

If anyone can help me with thi$, plea$e contact me at cchaski at linguisticEvidence.org or 302-856-9488 as I definitely need help and I am willing to pay for the consulting.

 

Many thanks,

Carole

[Rebecca Bria]

On 2/10/2015 at 10:18 AM, jbante said:

That's right. I also want to integrate FileMaker with more established tools based in R and Python as appropriate. I advocate using FileMaker solo more because of the gap between its actual and popularly perceived merit than because of its current place among other tools.

 

Which task is more difficult depends on your background. I like math more than I like computers, so reimplementing computations from R using only FileMaker would have less of a learning curve involved than integrating the two for me.

jbante, thank you so much for this discussion! I realize this is now an old thread: are there any updates on where we are now? I wasn't sure how R/Python my be integrated into Filemaker but I want to be able to do more data analysis (in archaeology) by building in these tools into my filemaker databases..searching online, I found this discussion. I would love to know anything you can offer, including opportunities that may be out there now for training (jbante or anyone else who has something to share!). Cheers!

[jbante]

For folks with a background emphasizing data analysis, there are examples of folks pulling FileMaker data into R and Python by hosting a FileMaker database through an ODBC connection. There isn't much training to be had on this except the documentation for FileMaker, R, and Python on how to use ODBC connections.

For folks with a background emphasizing software development, there are examples of folks using a plugin to crunch numbers using Java (with the 360Works plugin) or JavaScript (with the BaseElements plugin) libraries. For the price of more labor setting things up, there are also examples of setting up analytical functions in a web micro-service running libraries in some other programming language, and accessing that from FileMaker using the Insert from URL script step.

My background emphasizes math, and, for a combination of reasons, I like implementing analytical methods natively in FileMaker without plugins or external web services. Personal health issues have limited how much I could invest in that, but I do try to come up with something when specific requests come up on the forums and I'm having a good day. Unfortunately, very few FileMaker developers are comfortable with the numerical methods involved in any non-trivial technique, so I don't have much help in that regard. (To be fair, most of the R and Python communities aren't comfortable with those methods, either; but they still found a way to support the folks who are.) The training on this amounts to knowing FileMaker scripting and calculations well, and the literature on numerical methods.

Folks have been implementing data visualizations more sophisticated than the built-in charts for many years with web viewers.

We haven't made as much progress on this as I'd like. FileMaker as a tool in general is typically favored for applications where the app owners are more interested in minimizing the work it takes to build their minimum viable product than investing the effort it takes to build FileMaker-native analytical functions worth sharing. The desire comes up from time to time, but there isn't much in the way of publicly shared case studies to show the community that good things are possible and inspire folks to want more.

So, please tell us more about what kind of archaeology analysis you want to do in FileMaker. Start another thread with something specific!