3 Review(s)

This is a book about doing data science with Python, which immediately begs the question: what is data science? It's a surprisingly hard definition to nail down, especially given how ubiquitous the term has become. Vocal critics have variously dismissed the term as a superfluous label (after all, what science doesn't involve data?) or a simple buzzword that only exists to salt resumes and catch the eye of overzealous tech recruiters. The book is not meant to be an introduction to Python or to programming in general; I assume the reader has familiarity with the Python language, including defining functions, assigning variables, calling methods of objects, controlling the flow of a program, and other basic tasks. Instead it is meant to help Python users learn to use Python's data science stack–libraries such as IPython, NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Scikit-Learn, and related tools–to effectively store, manipulate, and gain insight from data.