Qri ("query") is about datasets. A transformion is a repeatable script for generating a dataset. Skylark is a scripting langauge from Google that feels a lot like python. This package implements skylark as a transformation syntax. Skylark tranformations are about as close as one can get to the full power of a programming language as a transformation syntax. Often you need this degree of control to generate a dataset.
Typical examples of a skylark transformation include:
- combining paginated calls to an API into a single dataset
- downloading unstructured structured data from the internet to extract
- re-shaping raw input data before saving a dataset
We're excited about skylark for a few reasons:
- python syntax - many people working in data science these days write python, we like that, skylark likes that. dope.
- deterministic subset of python - unlike python, skylark removes properties that reduce introspection into code behaviour