Chapter 1. Tools of the Trade
This chapter gives you an overview of the tools available for data analysis in Python, with details concerning the Python packages and libraries that will be used in this book. A few installation tips are given, and the chapter concludes with a brief example. We will concentrate on how to read data files, select data, and produce simple plots, instead of delving into numerical data analysis.
Before you start
We assume that you have familiarity with Python and have already developed and run some scripts or used Python interactively, either in the shell or on another interface, such as the Jupyter Notebook (formerly known as the IPython notebook). Hence, we also assume that you have a working installation of Python. In this book, we assume that you have installed Python 3.4 or later.
We also assume that you have developed your own workflow with Python, based on needs and available environment. To follow the examples in this book, you are expected...