georgeg

This tool and ecosystem does not support Julia. I would expect that at this stage a data science polyglot tool is not just R and Python. Not sure why they would not support Julia.

I am an East-African and this article does not provide the key reasons why Swahili is an important part of East-Africa and which often requires understanding of its history. Tanzania only adopted swahili post-colonial, but the language has flourished along the east-african coast (Mogandishu in present day somalia to Mozambique) for millennia as the glue language of trade. Kenyan coast (Lamu and Mombasa) played an instrumental role in the adoption of the language. Swahili itself is a fusion of bantu,arabic and borrowed some of the works from portuguese (Pesa- peso, Meza- Mezzo) and many others. As a core bantu language, it can be easily understood and adopted across the bantu lands of East, Central and South-africa. These elements are what makes it such a great language for the region. Trying to cement Tanzania as the core reason for the language success is short-sighted.

Am Kenyan in Tech/science. For the nature and the volume of work, the wages sighted here are grossly low. In addition, it appears that Sama was paid in US dollars and negotiated a great contract with OpenAI only to then exploit Kenyans and legally hind under the umbrella of low wages. Shame shame shame. This is so distressing " ... All of the four employees interviewed by TIME described being mentally scarred by the work. Although they were entitled to attend sessions with “wellness” counselors, all four said these sessions were unhelpful and rare due to high demands to be more productive at work...."

Am Kenyan - Born and raised and I lived at the Kenyan Coast. Kiswahili is very widely spoken and loved here. I studied Kiswahili as a language and i very much admire the rich vocabulary and idioms. It is both a national and an official language in Kenya and most of Eastern Africa.

Majority of Kenyans and East-africans are multi-lingual and they will speak on average 3 languages (English, Kiswahili, the mother-tongue and most likely an additional local language.) if they are Bantu, they will also understand 3 or more other languages and same if they are Nilotic or Cushitic.

If your are foreigner, visiting for tourism - you will very much unlikely understand Kenyans! and if you are a foreigner of they type " i lived in Kenya for 10 years" most likely in a posh residence in Nairobi or Mombasa -- Kenyans are likely to have spoken to you in English throughout! Do not mistake that for the idea that Kenyans only speak in English - remember i said majority are multilingual and given that we have over 42 different languages - the language that mostly unites us is Swahili - it is also deemed less elitist.

The language is spoken across the entire East africa - (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique (Swahili name - Msumbiji), Burundi, Rwanda and Eastern DRC Congo.)

The article is an excerpt from a more detailed book and I agree with most it - but the author could have done a better job at investigating the origin of the language and early spread. It has borrowed heavily from Bantu, Arabic (countless words) and Portuguese (e.g. Pesa - money in Swahili, Meza - a table in Swahili).

Would be nice to see your take on D-lang https://dlang.org/

I live in Africa and I am pretty envious of this trip. I plan for something close when my son gets 16 if he agree to that is. It would be wonderful! I think you will agree with me that what the western world reports of Africa is largely skewed and not representative of such a diverse continent, culture and landscape! Kenya is amazingly beautiful!

Nyuzi is a Swahili word for threads.

I feel that this discussion would be incomplete without mentioning D-lang (http://dlang.org) and the vibed framework (http://vibed.org) as alternatives to the technology platforms that the author mentioned.

I am happy with the Gates foundation and the strengthening of basic scientific research that has come about from their grants particularly in resource poor countries. Respective governments have a role to play in improving the health systems research and I am not sure that is the mandate of the Gates foundation or any other charity. Furthermore, it may mean meddling with political forces in their respective areas of support and I am not sure if that would really ease the situation.

After all what has the Brenton Woods institutions gained or improved in resource poor countries? Have they not poured billion of dollars in loans and grants and even given conditions (some very painful) on how to administer the monies? What has improved? I think Gates foundation is doing a commendable job in supporting and raising awareness for neglected infectious diseases for example and supporting grass root solutions to common problems. I am no expert in these areas and I stand to be corrected.

Does Julia community have a typesetting tool(s) like knitr + Latex? a.k.a can i embed Julia code on to a latex document the same way I can do with R code? That is one feature that can convert me very quickly.

lost precious time for thesis writing! evil game!

For some reason i found myself calculating the patterns of blue, red and black and if words like 'the' 'and' always fall on black or red highlights. I guess that slowed me down big time.

This is the kind of functionality that D language is really good at. If I were to go beyond the fun bit of this project, i would have a look at D language.

I am sure you could have taken a better picture! but it has to look like this so as to read not so far from the stereotype.

And I wished the R main website would get a face-lift as well :)

Well said.

Safari is a swahili name(Swahili is spoken by people of the East-coast of Africa). It means a journey or an adventure. It could also mean a great undertaking. Steve must have known this from his many journeys.:)

Is D not doing this sort of thing already or am I wrong?

... and why is it not obvious? just curious..

I love it! Was just trying to create a resume and you just bailed me!

I wanted to say this very thing and am glad you have stated it very well. I have un-followed projects because the news feed became too noisy.

This is absolutely needed. Glad that the project is come back to life. Big up to the developers.

Mobile payments have been very successful in some countries like Kenya, where the M-pesa system offered by a leading telecom provider is a leading mobile money service, with over 8 million subscribers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa