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Kafka And The Differing Aims Of Data Professionals

Kai Waehner argues that there is an impedence mismatch between data engineers, data scientists, and ML production engineers:

Data scientists love Python, period. Therefore, the majority of machine learning/deep learning frameworks focus on Python APIs. Both the stablest and most cutting edge APIs, as well as the majority of examples and tutorials use Python APIs. In addition to Python support, there is typically support for other programming languages, including JavaScript for web integration and Java for platform integration—though oftentimes with fewer features and less maturity. No matter what other platforms are supported, chances are very high that your data scientists will build and train their analytic models with Python.

There is an impedance mismatch between model development using Python, its tool stack and a scalable, reliable data platform with low latency, high throughput, zero data loss and 24/7 availability requirements needed for data ingestion, preprocessing, model deployment and monitoring at scale. Python in practice is not the most well-known technology for these requirements. However, it is a great client for a data platform like Apache Kafka.

Click through for the full argument as well as where Kafka can help mitigate some of the issues.