Hey everyone, this is Mukundan Sankar from Data
and AI with Mukundan. Today's episode, I want
to talk about how I built an AI app that translates
your code into a story. And I've used it to explain
my analysis and I'm hoping you can do it as well.
So about me, I'm not an engineer. I'm a data
analyst, a data scientist even. But I live in
the world of data. I live in dashboards, notebooks,
queries. My world is Python, Streamlit, Pandas,
metrics, deadlines. But recently my manager asked
me a very simple question. Hey, can you walk
me through what was your logic? He said, well,
not just me. Can you walk the team through as
well what the logic was? And you'll be wondering
what this logic was. I wrote a piece of code
and he wanted me to explain what the logic was.
Right. As simple as that. Now, here's the thing.
I had done the analysis. I had solved the problem.
But when it came time to explain it, I froze.
That moment, standing there, blinking at my screen,
trying to find the words to describe what I'd
just built, that's the moment the whole story
begins. So, what is a silent struggle for an
analyst? Or maybe an introverted, or I guess
not an extroverted analyst. And we don't talk
about this enough. Explaining your work is harder
than doing the work. As analysts, I would say
we move fast. We write scripts on a tight deadline.
There's very less hours allocated to analysts
to doing their work as compared to engineers.
And so we have to move really quick. We build
dashboards with changing requirements. We clean
messy data and make it look clean enough to trust.
And in the rush to get things done, we rarely
stop and ask, can I explain this? And not just
to our manager, not just to our team, but to
someone who's outside our domain, to someone
who doesn't know what... .cumsum means cum sum,
like cumulative sum or why .merge behaves the
way it does like a pandas function or how streamlit
even works and I can just talk about many other
pandas functions like even concat can you explain
it to other people and here's the kicker if you
can't explain it they can't understand it and
If they can't understand it, your impact disappears.
It gets reduced to he's good with numbers or
she makes the dashboards or, you know, something
like that. So here's the thing, you deserve better.
And here's how it all started, really. After
that meeting where my manager really asked me,
can you explain the logic? I started journaling.
Not about my analysis, but about why I couldn't
explain it. And the more I thought about it,
the more I realized this isn't a technical problem.
It is a storytelling problem. So I built something
not to replace what I do, but to help me explain
it better. And it's called Code to Story. And
this is how it started. So you upload a .py file,
like a Python file or a .txt file, like a text
file. And the app sends it through a GPT -4 storytelling
prompt. And the result is a narrative, like a
case study or a blog post, and basically an explanation.
It's like taking a messy notebook having someone
clean it up and say, here's what this really
is and here's why it matters. And I didn't just
build it for fun. I built it because I needed
it. I needed it to explain. So I've also tested
this out on what I've... built out so this was
like a recent blog post i wrote uh this was to
test the blow test the tone of the blog post
right i wanted to see how my uh you know how
i'm writing previous blog post what the tone
is it is conveying you know what is the intended
tone and what the tone i think it is conveying
versus what what actually is the tone that got
conveyed this was again using AI and I'll link
that blog post in the show notes and you'll see
it's called tone detector so it's like just I
call the blog as I built an AI tool to expose
the lie that my blog was telling and so this
was that example and so the app the app script
is called toneappdetector .py And it was a streamlit
app, like a Python -based streamlit app, that
took in block content and compared tone predictions
from open AI and hugging face models. Basically,
does this paragraph sound emotional? Does it
sound professional, persuasive, angry, joyful?
All of those emotions, right? And I wanted to
see what would happen if I uploaded just the
raw code. to the code to story app which I built
here and so I did no comments no readme and no
prep just that rock python file and here here's
what it gave me back the block tone detector
app is a symphony of working technologies a symphony
of technology technologies working together to
solve a common problem like understanding tone
in writing built with hugging face open ai and
stream lit it allows users to visualize emotional
patterns paragraph by paragraph that's just a
brief paragraph what it gave but like it gave
a pretty lengthy blog post right and this wasn't
just a summary it was a story it sounded like
something i would be proud to post on linkedin
Or share with my hiring manager. I mean, not
my hiring manager. Share with my manager or something
that... Share with a future hiring manager that
you want to interview with. Or read at the top
of a project portfolio. And that's when it clicked
for me. This tool doesn't just explain your code.
It helps you see your work with fresh perspective.
With fresh eyes. It isn't just for engineers,
analysts, data scientists. It's for anyone who
writes code, really. Even a little bit. And wants
to explain their thinking. Could be someone who's
junior on the team. Junior analyst, junior data
scientist. A project manager who prototypes their
own tools. A freelancer with a lot of client
scripts. Job seekers with test projects. Career
switchers trying to showcase their skills. It's
for people who have done the work but don't have
the words to explain that work clearly. If that's
you, you're not alone. I've been there and that's
why I built this. Let's understand the why behind
the tool. Let's zoom out for a second, right?
In the age of ChatGPT, Cloud, Copilot, BARD,
DeepSeek, AI can write code. But you know what
it can't still do well? What can it not do well
yet? Tell your story. It can't say why you chose
this approach. why that edge case mattered, and
what it felt like to build something from scratch.
And that's the superpower now. Storytelling isn't
just a soft skill anymore. It's the skill that
separates people who get promoted from those
who don't. So if you want to grow in this field,
You need to learn how to explain that work. That
really amazing work that you did. But if it's
not out there, it's just something. It's just
a piece of code. And code to story is just one
small step towards that. It's not here to replace
your voice. It's here to help you find it. Let's
look at how to use it. It's like a three -step
framework. right let's get practical here's how
you can start using code to story today step
one like just pick a python file something from
your github your site project even your job search
folder don't even overthink it just upload it
to the app no need for comments context or polish
you don't need any polished code for this just
the raw dot py file or dot txt file so just drop
python file text file whatever and that'll be
step two so step one pick up python file step
two upload it to the app step three read the
result and decide where to use it post it on
linkedin for that matter right paste it into
your code readme you github readme that could
have this use it as a blog outline bring it to
an interview share it internally with your team
and if you want to let it be the first draft
of your explanation you'll find that your code
has more meaning than you have ever thought it
would have right so I built this app for myself,
but I'm sharing it because I know I'm not the
only one who's struggled to explain their work.
If you've ever written something meaningful during
a hard season, if you've ever built a tool that
no one noticed, if you've ever felt like your
work should have spoken louder or for itself,
this is your second chance. Upload the code,
read the story and... Let the world hear what
you've been trying to say. You're not just good
with numbers. You're not just a dashboard guy.
You are a builder, a thinker, and a storyteller.
And now, you've got a tool that helps you show
the world exactly that. I'm Mukundan Sankar.
This is Data and AI with Mukundan. And this...
Is your voice finally heard?