Data-Science Reactivity: Three Ways

Ian Lyttle

2022-04-06

Preface

The purpose of this book is to compare and contrast reactive data-science apps using three languages/frameworks:

• R: Shiny
• Python: Dash
• JavaScript: Observable

An example app is created for each framework:

• starting with the penguins data-frame from palmerpenguins:
  • show it as a table.
  • specify grouping columns, aggregation columns, and an aggregation function.
• create an aggregated data-frame from the input, using the specification.
  • show the aggregated data-frame as a table.

This book is written for folks who know how to develop basic Shiny apps, and wish to extend their knowledge to Dash (Python) or Observable (JavaScript). I will assume you have:

• basic knowledge of how to build a Shiny app.
• some familiarity with the tidyverse, in particular, dplyr.

In this book:

• we’ll review a Shiny app, highlighting parts of its code.

• we’ll look at a Dash app and the code.

• we’ll look at an Observable Notebook, where the app is the code.

The goal is to give you the confidence to take the next steps to learn more about each of these frameworks.