Spatial computing doesn’t get much attention these days, however it plays a pivotal role in our everyday life. Almost every aspects of our life have a spatio-temporal context and we are using spatial computing services like map applications, location based services intentionally, but other activities, like ride sharing, public transport, the logistic pipelines behind online and brick and mortar shops and many other things rely on this fascinating field. Spatial Computing by Shekhar and Vold gives a brilliant overview of the state-of-the-art geoinformatics.

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As we’ve seen in our previous posts, developing software is not only about writing code. You have to use quality tools to write human and machine readable and maintainable code and you have to automate your workflow while following industry best practices (i.e. using git, doing unit tests, and etc.) We can’t emphasize enough that software development is team work, and there are development methodologies which help you to manage the complexity of a project and also these methodologies help you to coordinate you and your co-workers’ effort to make a good software. Putting Machine Learning (or Data Science/AI/etc.) into the mix complicates the situation, but it’s worth trying to follow a structured approach since no man is an island and you write software for others, not for your drawer.

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Modern science comes from the former Austria-Hungary (or the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy). Don’t just think of Freud. The Vienna Circle was the most influential group in the history of logic and philosophy, but there were numerous “Kreis” in Vienna. Karl Menger’s Mathematical Colloquium, or the Austrian School of Economics, but don’t forget other parts of the Empire. The Lwów–Warsaw School formed in Galicia, and Budapest was the birth place of several mathematical geniuses like John von Neumann, Paul Erdős and etc. David Edmonds’ fantastic book tells the story of the vibrant Vienna, the rise of the circle and how it is transplanted into the Anglo-Saxon world right before WW2. It is not a philosophy/logic book, although it explains the basic ideas of the Cricle (or its members), but it is rather a book on the history of ideas.

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