Getting the Tools

For this book, all of the examples are tested using Python 3 and the Scikit‐learn library, a Python library that implements the various types of machine learning algorithms, such as classification, regression, clustering, decision tree, and more. Besides Scikit‐learn, you will also be using some complementary Python libraries—NumPy, Pandas, and matplotlib.

While you can install the Python interpreter and the other libraries individually on your computer, the trouble‐free way to install all of these libraries is to install the Anaconda package. Anaconda is a free Python distribution that comes with all of the necessary libraries that you need to create data science and machine learning projects.

Anaconda includes the following:

• The core Python language
• The various Python packages (libraries)
• conda, Anaconda's own package manager for updating Anaconda and packages
• Jupyter Notebook (formerly known as iPython Notebook), a web‐based...