The document discusses the use of Neo4j and Clojure to explore election results, highlighting challenges with poorly formatted open data from UK elections. It emphasizes the advantages of Neo4j, such as intuitive querying and good framework support, alongside the speaker's experiences as a software developer. A practical demonstration is provided, illustrating the visualization of election data.

1. E X P L O R I N G E L E C T I O N
R E S U LT S W I T H N E O 4 J
N O S Q L M A T T E R S 2 0 1 4 : L I G H T N I N G TA L K

2. W H O A M I ?
• David Simons
• @SwamWithTurtles
github.com/SwamWithTurtles
• Software Developer
• …for a bespoke solutions
provider Softwire. (Hint:
we’re currently hiring)
• … for fun

4. N O O P E N D ATA F O R U K
E L E C T I O N S R E S U LT S
T H E P R O B L E M

5. A C A D E M I C
W E B S I T E
C O N TA I N I N G
B A D LY
F O R M AT T E D
D ATA
D ATA
S C R A P E R
( P Y T H O N )
N E O 4 J
!
!
R E S T A P I
E N D P O I N T
( C L O J U R E )

6. W H Y
C L O J U R E ?
• Tim dared me to.

7. W H Y
C L O J U R E ?
• But in retrospect…
• Good native library
support:
• Leiningen
• Ring (for HTTP/REST)
Neocons (for Neo4J)
Incanter (for Stats)

8. W H Y N E O 4 J ?
• “Whiteboardability”
• Good framework support
for a range of languages
• Closely matches our
model
• Intuitive “Cypher” Query
Language to do graph
based queries

9. L E T ’ S S E E I T I N A C T I O N

10. Small subgraph visualised

11. Results of 2010 General Election

12. Has anyone ever got no votes?
(Sorry Mr. Gallagher)

13. N E O 4 J I S
A W E S O M E F O R
Q U I C K D E V
W O R K

14. T H A N K S !
David Simons
david.simons@softwire.com
@SwamWithTurtles
Github: SwamWithTurtles
!
Code:
(Warning: not yet in stable/
workable version!)
github.com/pimterry/
national-hack-the-
government-2014