Explain when (not) to use OpenRefine about openrefine-socialsci HOT 4 OPEN

I do realise now that this has been mentioned in part in #79 and also relates to #56 and #38.

from openrefine-socialsci.

I think we should look at the Library Carpentry lesson on OpenRefine for clearer use cases in the introduction episode: splitting data elements into different columns, normalising date formats and maybe matching/enhancing. This would go instead of the Motivations section, which is currently written for potential instructors (I feel).

Let's replace the Features and Getting help sections with How is OR different from spreadsheet applications? and When would you write a script instead of using OR?.

Spreadsheets

• OR is not for creating data and doesn't handle colours/formulae/comments/... in cells
• it is easier to undo/redo actions, especially applying actions on different files
• find and replace works on everything or one thing at a time, OR allows row selection and works in one column at a time
• OR has clustering so that you don't have to be aware of which variations exist, unlike in spreadsheets.
• you can load spreadsheets, but they need to be tabular

Scripts

• OR is more for exploratory cleaning, scripts are more useful when you know what to fix
• use scripts when you have too many data for OR
• use scripts when OR cannot do what you want, like fixing data using a machine-learning model.

from openrefine-socialsci.

From #37:

• Change learning objective "describe use cases" to understand how OpenRefine compares to spreadsheet apps and scripting".

from openrefine-socialsci.

Perhaps it's also useful to distinguish OR from using SQL with a relational database. SQL also allows selection of rows and creating derivative columns. The cross function allows to join data from different projects, like JOIN in SQL. (cross is not currently part of the lesson, but I have used it myself.)

from openrefine-socialsci.