To get the most out of this book

This book requires a UNIX machine with a relatively recent Python 3 installation and the ability to install Python packages locally. This includes any machine running recent versions of macOS and Linux. All the code has been tested on a Microsoft Windows machine.

We propose that you use software for Python package, dependency, and environment management to have a stable Python 3 environment. We use Anaconda, but any similar tool is going to work fine.

Last, if you really want to make the best use of the book, then you need to experiment as much as you can with the presented Python code, create your own iSAX indexes and visualizations, and maybe port the code into a different programming language.