The Test Set by Posit

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Posit, PBC

9 episodes

5 hours ago

In Part 1 of our conversation with James Blair, we trace his delightfully non-linear path from childhood robotics dreams to journalism to R, with a few stops in between. We hear about the Shiny app that changed his career, plus a candid roundtable with Michael, Hadley, and Wes about whether a data-science master’s still pays off in the age of AI. Episode notes This is a story about staying hands-on and fiercely inquisitive — whether analyzing bike telemetry or in teaching data science. Jame...

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Episodes (9/9)

The Test Set by Posit

James Blair: Part 1 — Portfolios, practice, and staying curious

5 hours ago

29 minutes

The Test Set by Posit

Julia Silge: Part 2 — Glue work, licensing, and open source in the age of LLMs

In part two of our conversation with Julia Silge, we discuss how work actually ships: the boundaries, the glue, and the tools that turn noise into signal. From there, we go macro and wonder what the LLM era means for humanity’s contributions, plus how licensing is evolving to protect sustainability without abandoning openness. Episode notes Both practical and philosophical, this conversation spans workplace energy, team connective tissue, and the big questions LLMs have us asking in a shift...

2 weeks ago

28 minutes

The Test Set by Posit

Julia Silge: Part 1 — Positron, pineapple pizza, and the art of iteration

In part one of our conversation with Julia Silge, astronomer-turned–data-science leader, we explore why data science needs a different kind of IDE. Julia takes us inside Positron, Posit’s next-generation, data-scientist-first environment, and unpacks the day-to-day realities that make data science work unlike software engineering. Along the way, we get a first-hand account of a legendary pineapple-pizza protest and how to juggle multiple projects at once. Episode Notes: A behind-the-scenes ...

3 weeks ago

38 minutes

The Test Set by Posit

Michael Chow: From psychology and Python to constrained creativity

For this episode, we turn the mic around. Wes McKinney takes over the interviewer’s chair to chat with his co-host, Michael Chow. Michael’s a principal software engineer at Posit, but he started out studying how people think — literally, with a PhD in cognitive psychology. Somewhere along the way, he got hooked on data science, helped build adaptive learning tools at DataCamp, and now spends his days thinking about how to make Python easier to use and more fun. The two dig into what drives Mi...

1 month ago

1 hour 7 minutes

The Test Set by Posit

Roger Peng: Sustaining data science — in classrooms, code, and conversations

Michael, Hadley, and Wes welcome Roger Peng, professor of statistics and data science at UT Austin and co-host of Not So Standard Deviations. Together they trace Roger’s journey from early R adopter to pioneering online educator and prolific podcaster. The conversation ranges from the accidental rise of “data science” as a field, to the tension between research papers and software maintenance, to what makes for meaningful, lasting creative work. What’s Inside: Roger’s first analysis project a...

2 months ago

45 minutes

The Test Set by Posit

Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel: Teaching in the AI era — and keeping students engaged

In this conversation, Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel, data science educator at Duke University and Posit, joins Michael, Hadley, and Wes to talk about teaching data science in a time when AI can write the code for you. Mine shares her journey from actuarial science to academia, the teaching philosophy behind the “whole game” approach, and her experiments using LLMs for instant student feedback. Along the way, the group dives into the joys and risks of coding by hand, the role of open source in the cla...

2 months ago

54 minutes

The Test Set by Posit

Wes McKinney: Part 2 — The open source hustle and an insider view of Positron

In part two of our conversation with Wes McKinney, we dig into the challenges and realities of sustaining open source development. Wes shares how funding actually works (or doesn’t), why corporate buy-in is essential, and what it’s like building tools across languages, communities, and IDEs. We also talk about the Apache Software Foundation’s role in open governance and the origin of the Positron IDE. What’s Inside: Why passion isn’t enough for open source to scaleApache Arrow’s origin story ...

3 months ago

26 minutes

The Test Set by Posit

Wes McKinney: Part 1 — Building Pandas, Arrow, and a speedrunning legacy

Wes McKinney’s fingerprints are all over the modern data stack — from inventing Pandas to co-creating Arrow. But before all that, Wes was organizing speedrun communities and hacking together better ways to wrangle datasets in finance. In this conversation, he shares his origin story and what makes good tools good. Stay tuned for part 2, coming soon. What’s Inside: How frustration with data work led Wes to build pandas (and leave a PhD)A nostalgic dive into the GoldenEye speedrunning sceneWhy ...

3 months ago

23 minutes

The Test Set by Posit

Hadley Wickham: Spreadsheets, bikes, and the accidental empire of R packages

Before Hadley Wickham became a pillar of modern data science, he was a spreadsheet-loving teenager making databases for his dad’s job. In this episode, he reflects on the early days of his involvement with R, the birth of tidyverse, and how real-world unpredictability — like a bear in a field — shapes data science. What’s Inside: Hadley’s first brush with R code … inside a Word docConsulting as a grad student — and learning what people really want from statsHow messy Excel sheets inspired the...

4 months ago

28 minutes