Week 6, Day 2
I experimented some more today with restructuring the Causality platform to improve readability and usability. Ultimately, I've concluded that accomplishing a valuable redesign without sacrificing ease of use (particularly with regard to command-line run configurations) is both a hefty feat and one which should be put on the back burner until my counterfactual implementation is complete. However, I learned a lot today about best practices in Python project structuring (source 1, source 2) through designing a new platform hierarchy.
With this research and experimentation done, I then continued my counterfactual module preliminary structuring. Though Pearl's paper is clear in building the theoretical basis of counterfactuals, it has been rather difficult to extract from the literature the functionalities I want the module to support. This involves using the theory to answer the question "What counterfactual queries would a user want to ask?". I also completed my class design for the module and updated the intervention module class today, consistent with the compositional platform structure Roger and I agreed on.
Also, today I met with Roger Dev and Lorraine Chapman to discuss progress and next steps at the midway point of my internship. While it was an important task to update my timeline and goals for this project, it was also a really valuable learning opportunity -- Lorraine and Roger gave me some solid advice on navigating communicational and workstyle obstacles, which I'll carry forth with me into the rest of my career.