Who this book is for
This book builds on the core skills that you already have, enabling you to become an efficient data science practitioner. Therefore, it assumes that you know the basics of programming and statistics.
The code examples provided in the book won't require you to have a mastery of Python, but we will assume that you know at least the basics of Python scripting, lists and dictionary data structures, and how class objects work. Before starting, you can quickly acquire such skills by spending a few hours on the online courses that we are going to suggest in the first chapter. You can also use the tutorial provided on the Packt Publishing website.
No advanced data science concepts are necessary though, as we will provide you with the information that is essential to understand all the core concepts that are used by the examples in the book.
Summarizing, this book is for the following:
- Novice and aspiring data scientists with limited Python experience and a working knowledge of data analysis, but no specific expertise of data science algorithms
- Data analysts who are proficient in statistic modeling using R or MATLAB tools and who would like to exploit Python to perform data science operations
- Developers and programmers who intend to expand their knowledge and learn about data manipulation and machine learning
