Two years ago we had a rare family outing at the Dallas Museum of Art
(my son is a teenager and he's into sport after all). DMA hosted an excellent
exhibition of modern art and allowed taking pictures. Two hours and
dozen of pictures later my weekend was over but thanks to Google Photos
I stumbled upon those pictures again. Suddenly, I realized that
two paintings captured make up an illustration of one of the most
important framework in big data - MapReduce.
There
are multiple papers, tutorials and web pages about it and to
truly understand and use framework like this one should study at least a few thoroughly. There are also illustrations of MapReduce architecture and principles out there too.
But the power of art can express more with less and with just two paintings below I will try to illustrate this for MapReduce.
First, we have the work by Erró Foodscape, 1964:
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Foodscape, 1964
Oil on canvas
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It
illustrates variety, richness, potential of insight (if consumed
properly), and of course, scale. The painting is boundless
with no ends to the table surface in all 4 directions. Observe many types of food and drinks, packaging, presentations, varying in colors, texture and origin (better quality image found here). Thus the painting represents big data so much better than
any flowchart or diagram.
The 2d and final painting is by Wayne Thiebaud Salads, Sandwiches, and Desserts, 1962:
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Salads, Sandwiches, and Desserts, 1962
Oil on canva
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Should we think of how MapReduce works this seemingly infinite table fittingly resembling
conveyor belt looks like a result of split-apply-combine on food items from Foodscape universe. Indeed, each vertical group is a combination of the same type of finished and plated food combined into variably sized groups and ready to serve (better quality image found here). One can imagine an invisible hand of MapReduce process grouping and arranging items as they flow over conveyor belt.
As with any art there is much about MapReduce that was left out of the picture. That's why we still have papers, books, and Wikipedia. And again, I'd like to remind of importance of taking your kids to a museum.
