Getting started with Google Colab
To help you gain a better understanding of the different data science techniques that will be covered in this chapter, there will be some hands-on exercises you can complete with Python.
To set everything up, we will be using Google Colab as it is an easy place to get started if you haven’t used Python before.
What is Google Colab?
Google Colaboratory, commonly known as Google Colab, is a free cloud service that provides an environment where you can run Python code. It’s like having a powerful computer right in your browser, which is particularly useful for data science tasks, including but not limited to statistics, machine learning, and natural language processing (NLP). You don’t need to install anything, and it’s available on any device with internet access.
A step-by-step guide to setting up Google Colab
Follow these steps to set up Colab with ease:
- First, you need a Google account. If you don...