Making as a way of studying a topic

Making an artifact is an excellent way to study a topic. By producing something, we are forced to apply the theoretical knowledge we have gained.

A few examples from my own work:

  • Reimplementing an RNN, and surrounding it with tests and documentation, forced me to fully understand the internal workings of an RNN model.
  • Hand-crafting my own static site blog facilitated me learning how to use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, while also helping me understand the web's idioms better.
Pages that link here

nxviz
nxviz is a package for what I call "rational" graph visualizations

nxviz

nxviz is a package for what I call "rational" graph visualizations. In this package, I try to use the idea of studying while building (see Build a project portfolio and Making as a way of studying a topic) to study the bigger idea of principled graph visualizations. (see Use position, order, and color in graph visualizations)