Tableau or python
Hi. I'm a student pursuing my bachelor's degree in finance. Which one of them should I start learning, python or Tableau. Also, what are the prerequisites for either of them.
Hi. I'm a student pursuing my bachelor's degree in finance. Which one of them should I start learning, python or Tableau. Also, what are the prerequisites for either of them.
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I've tried python. just want to try tableau to compare both of them
Python and it’s not even close.
You can pick Tableau up in a day, particularly if you understand Python.
A strong understanding of Python will take you weeks at a minimum if you have no other programming knowledge and it’ll create the most solid foundation from which you can build your knowledge.
Assuming that you want to be at a hedge fund, I'd definitely go with Python. Check out the Python for Finance from Yuxing Yan. I loved the book as it is not academic but very practical and explains things very well - it is written by a financier and not a programmer. Then, there are couple of great specializations on Coursera - one from EDHEC, which reached you how to do quant analysis using Python, and a specialization on algo from NYIF, also on Coursera.
Tableaus is a great tool and I have done a lot with it back when I worked for a stock exchange, but for quants there is nothing like Python, if you ask me. Also, Tableau is a piece of cake - it will just take you a few days to learn how to create stuff life candlestick charts, heatmaps, and work with geodata, and even make beautiful dashboards.
As a beginner to programming, I could still do those courses, right?
I would actually say that for what you need Python, decent knowledge of mathematics (calculus, linear algebra, time series, stochatics) and statistics (all about distributions etc) is much more important than the knowledge of programming itself. You should first understand what you are doing, and only then go with how you do it. The book that I mentioned is teaching you Python from the basics, but you may want to take a couple of foundational courses on Python for Data Science - ones I have personally taken are from Coursera - IBM Data Science Professional certificate. They will also give you a refresher on statistics and matrix algebra.
Interesting to hear that and while I don't know much about how quants work, I always wondered why they use a combination of C++ and Python. I can see that C++ is great for high frequency trading, but what is Python used for?
C++ is significantly faster than Python, which is why it's used for HFT trading (since speed to buy/sell is extremely important0.
However, that comes at the tradeoff of extremely cryptic syntax (Python is basically regular English) and more code that has to be written.
An example of additional code is the following:
Suppose you want to purchase a chicken burger at Chick Fil A.
Normally you would go up to the cashier, and tell them you want Order 1, (Classic chicken burger). From that the meal preparer is able to immediately know which toppings and meat should go on the burger. This would represent python
However, for C++ you would need to say that you want Order 1, Classic chicken burger and specify what the ingredients of said burger should be (chicken, lettuce, mayo, ,bread, etc.)
Clearly the first case is easier to dictate, while the second is worse, but with coding the first runs a decent bit slower because the ingredients necessary have to be determined from the burger you wanted, whereas in the second case you explicitly said everything you wanted.
Because of this Python is basically used whenever C++ isn't necessary.
Just my $.02, but really both. Python is where you do the calculations / modeling / merging / all things data analysis / forecasting / that kind of stuff. Tableau is where you can take the output and make it digestible. Python has some libraries for making graphs / prettier output, but I think they are a PITA, and tableau is literally designed for building pretty reports. Python is for when you're doing the difficult stuff, Tableau is for presenting. It's a similar dynamic to excel and PowerPoint.
Python is a great option as well
Tableau and Python to me are very different tools that accomplish different things. Python has some data visualization capabilities that are excellent, but, especially for business-oriented roles, you can get pretty much all the way there with PowerBI and Tableau. Additionally, DAX (the language behind PowerBI calculations known for being clunky) is way easier to understand than Python for people that have 0 coding experience. Tableau is even more intuitive and easier to pick up IMO.
I consider Python a sort of "Queen of All Trades" type of tool, if you will, because it does a lot things really, really well but some would argue that other tools might be slightly better or more digestible for certain tasks. For example, Numpy/Pandas is phenomenal for a lot of spreadsheet manipulation and automating the creation of reports, but some might argue that Alteryx is simpler, and therefore faster, for the majority of data cleansing and ETL needs. For example, a really common stack in data analytics is SQL + PowerBI or Tableau or Lookr (some visualization tool essentially) + maybe Alteryx for automation of ETL. I'm working in analytics and rarely touch Python, honestly, because 90% of the time, the use case isn't there and/or the client doesn't understand wtf I did.
All of that is to say, OP, that it's not really an either/or, if you want to learn analytics. Depending on how deep you want to go though, and taking the average need case for the typical user of this website, I'd say spend way more time on Tableau and potentially SQL. I don't think Python is that useful for most business cases yet TBQH. I think Python is fun, but frankly, I've found my time I spent learning perhaps could have been better spent on PowerBI and SQL.
you can't compare tableau to python. One is high-level programming language with a myriad of functionalities and use cases. the other is a data analytics product. For more versatility and a segue to programming learn Python. The books from Mark Lutz are fantastic.
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