Comments on: Why you should learn to love data

By: Teaching Online Journalism » MVPs for October 2008

Teaching Online Journalism » MVPs for October 2008 — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:20:34 +0000

[...] Why you should learn to love data [...]

By: Teaching Online Journalism » Data visualization resources

Teaching Online Journalism » Data visualization resources — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 11:35:54 +0000

[...] I was shamelessly picking the brain of Matt Waite in recent weeks, he advised me that if I don’t have more than three to five weeks to spend on [...]

By: Scot Hacker

Scot Hacker — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:51:29 +0000

By: Scot Hacker

Scot Hacker — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:48:09 +0000

Aron – The main quantitative difference is that Rails doesn’t have anything like Django’s auto-generated, production-ready admin interface. Define your data model and journalists can begin entering content immediately, while the dev continues work on the rest of the site. That’s a *huge* time saver, and the main draw over Rails.

The site development time advantages of Django over Rails has been tested and documented several times – here’s one example report:

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcn8282p_1hg4sr9

Tough stuff to quantify, but I have yet to see a comparison showing faster dev times for Rails over Django!

By: Aron Pilhofer

Aron Pilhofer — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 23:21:50 +0000

Scot: I’ve learned some Django and use Rails every day, and it absolutely is a matter of preference. And I’m not sure where you’re getting the idea that one is “faster to develop in” than the other, but that’s just nonsense.

They both have their strengths and weaknesses, their quirks and qualities. Generally, if you like Python, you’ll love Django. The language and the framework share many of the same traits. If you like Ruby, you’ll like Rails. Same deal there.

Coke/Pepsi.

By: Scot Hacker

Scot Hacker — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:31:52 +0000

Also, I think the Django/Rails = Pepsi/Coke analogy is limiting – makes it sound like the choice is one of simple preference. But there are important differences between them that should be weighed carefully when choosing.

Nutshell: Rails has a larger installed base, and more developers. Django is easier to work with and faster to develop in. Most importantly, Django automatically creates a back-end for data entry as soon as the data model has been defined. That’s the key to the Django tagline “The web application framework for journalists with deadlines.”

By: Scot Hacker

Scot Hacker — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:24:58 +0000

Good posting Mindy. The question this leaves hanging, is WHY use a framework rather than a CMS for data-driven stories, or for various types of evergreen content built on top of databases? (I know the answer, but would love to see the framework gospel spelled out for newsrooms who read your site). Maybe in a future post?

By: Matt Waite

Matt Waite — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:22:09 +0000

Who is forgetting the “real stories” as opposed to what, fake ones? Who said there’s only one way to handle information? Who said you can’t take the same basic information you’d gather for a “real” story and use it for an app that gives a reader a lot more insight to violence in your community in addition to your so-called real story? Do you see your false choices here? And does your newsroom have all the people it needs to write every one of these “real stories”?

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:25:07 +0000

“Every murder, for example, has a day, a time, a location. Every murder has a victim, and (we hope) a suspect. Both the victm and the suspect have age, race, and gender. Every murder also has a weapon, a motive, and a relationship.”

Every murder also has a story, about a life ruined (two, really, if you count the killer), about a puzzle to be solved by the police, about a neighborhood, about a city.
Maybe if we told those instead of covering crime through a computer-generated litany of the day’s shootings (or a string of cop briefs), we’d have more readers.
Or maybe we do both, no harm in that. But let’s not forget the real stories in all the gee-whiz data applications.

By: Teaching Online Journalism » When to choose data over stories

Teaching Online Journalism » When to choose data over stories — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:08:07 +0000

[...] Notes from the classroom and observations about today’s practice of journalism online « Why you should learn to love data [...]