u/Hot-Fan-1804

Hi guys, I barely know python, I haven't writing my own code in 3 years, been vibe coding a lot for academic assignments.

Just out of curiosity I'm asking my deepseek v4 flash on how to do quant, first thing I asked is whats the tool/setup. It recommends IBKR and using its API, and some python libraries.

Do you approve? I'm looking for platform where I can buy fraction shares (Imma just put $50 for now), and with good option of investment products to trade.

I'm very new to this automation stuff, so far I only tried claude code, opencode, and hermes agent. I don't understand why you'd want to use n8n with the current state of agentic AI like hermes or openclaw?

Also some workflow just need some python scripts with API. Isn't it also easier to review?

I landed a data processing job, mentioned to employer that I also have a bit of AI automation experience, now I'm specifically hired for that.

The task is extracting particular data from several huge excel files from different clients. Each raw data is like 20-40 columns of excel or csv, with hunderds of thausands of rows. Basically each file would have different column title, and we need to filter based on one column which contain string rows of classification, but the classification terms are different for each client as well. Different clients also have different headings and table format in their file.

At the start of it I just vibe coded the solution, ended up with AI + Python scripts that processes the different files. The AI is API based, only called occasionally for new files to generate mapping of columns, since columns header is different for each clients.

Issue I'm facing is I tried to make the whole thing to be able to onboard and create new mappings for each new file 'formats'. But each new files has made it necessary for me to also edit the hardcoded Python script. Since the python take role on everything else other than the mapping.

Here are some of the issues I'm facing and the solutions I made:

1. Double row header, some client has their header to be in 2 rows, but they somehow write the physical unit above the information header, so I edit the python script to spot these and just take both rows. Then the script profile the rows (for strings I take the list of classifications or take a few samples, for numbers I take the range value), and send it to AI to generate index mapping of the wanted data.

2. Different main data location in the excel. The vibe coded script ended up using some sort of criteria based stuff related to the cells content to spot the actual table location within the excel. But today I come accross file where the tables are separated to different worksheets and hence require multiple sheet extraction.

3. Missing wanted columns. A few times already the AI failed to spot the right column and then I needed to modify the prompt. But there are cases where the desired data needs to be derived from somewhere else, for example from totally different column and then I needed to do some column operations. Or today I also found case where the info is in the file name or the worksheet name.

It's not a problem when I'm the one doing it but I feel like I'm failing a bit in term of establishing a truly automated workflow for this. The delivery for now is a .exe file as internal tool where they can drop the input and receive the output in seconds.

That plus a backend server where mapping is stored and LLM operate on updating the mapping. This was also a bit of a pain to set up.

The whole set up also allows for totally offline operation when the file is identifed to fit previously known table format with exactly the same classification terms.

Potential alternative is the employer also accept finely tuned prompt for Claude desktop 'Projects'. I'm honestly questioning if the Python + API LLM was a good approach or should I rely on Claude agentic capability. But I'm a bit at that sunk cost fallacy state maybe, since I've invested time in developing the python scripts.

Open request to every business people in Leuven, please open work/study cafe with proper AC.

Thank you.

Hi guys, I just defended my master thesis recently. I already expressed my interest to publish this work to a as academic paper. My promoter (Professor) & supervisor (PhD student) both seems to be supportive. But I'm yet to discuss it further.

How common is it to publish as first author for a paper that's based on master thesis? I don't want to put any heavy work further if I'm not first author. I think it's just worth a lot more for me if in term of 4pplying for academic career internationally if I'm the first author.

Please let me know if you have any knowledge about this, thanks!

Where is prof jiang teach in his new dante livestream series?