Description

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If you're curious about how things work, this fun and intriguing guide will help you find real answers to everyday problems. By using fundamental math and doing simple programming with the Ruby and R languages, you'll learn how to model a problem and work toward a solution.

All you need is a basic understanding of programming. After a quick introduction to Ruby and R, you'll explore a wide range of questions by learning how to assemble, process, simulate, and analyze the available data. You'll learn to see everyday things in a different perspective through simple programs and common sense logic. Once you finish this book, you can begin your own journey of exploration and discovery.

Here are some of the questions you'll explore:

• Determine how many restroom stalls can accommodate an office with 70 employees
• Mine your email to understand your particular emailing habits
• Use simple audio and video recording devices to calculate your heart rate
• Create an artificial society--and analyze its behavioral patterns to learn how specific factors affect our real society

About the Author

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Sau Sheong Chang has been in software development, mostly web applications and recently cloud- and data-related systems, for almost 17 years and is still a keen and enthusiastic programmer. He has been active in programming with Ruby for the past 6 years and recently started with R for the past year. He is active in the local developer communities, especially in the Singapore Ruby Brigade. In April 2011 he co-organized the first and largest Ruby conferences in Southeast Asia, the RedDotRubyConf. He has published 2 books, the first in 2008 titled Ruby on Rails Mashup Projects and the second in 2010, titled Cloning Internet Applications with Ruby. Both books were published by Packt Publishing. Mr. Chang is currently the Director of Applied Research in HP Labs Singapore, with research focusing on cloud computing and big data. His previous roles include a stint as the CTO of a popular online gaming company and Director of Engineering for Yahoo! Southeast Asia. More detailed information can be found from http: //www.saush.com/profile.