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Python for Data Analysis

johndcook.com

120 pointsanotherbot28 comments

Blogspam, copied (without author's permission?) from http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/10/24/python-for-data-ana... . [EDITED to add: actually, it looks like it was with the author's position. Still blogspam. Incidentally, John Cook's blog is frequently updated and frequently interesting, at least for anyone with an interest in mathematics and software.]

Given that the posting has risen quite high on the front page, can the link be changed to the URL of the original?

Not that there was much meat in the article, anyway, but at least the following is mildly insightful:

I prefer Python to R for mathematical computing because mathematical computing doesn’t exist in a vacuum; there’s always other stuff to do. I find doing mathematical programming in a general-purpose language is easier than doing general-purpose programming in a mathematical language.

Spamming not intended. And yep, John Cook's blog is fantastic. Concise but powerful ideas like the one quoted below.

http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2012/10/22/fixing-computers/

Yes, some interesting stuff.

ipython notebook looks nice. Two month wait for paper version in the UK so I'll set the environment up first.

Instead of following the Amazon link, you can go to O'reilly page and use the code CFSTNY to get 50% off. (almost no difference with Amazon.com Kindle version, but you also get the pdf)

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920023784.do?code=CFSTNY

"You did not meet the criteria for this discount" Know what the reason could be?

expired at 12pm PDT (3pm EDT)?

or you tried to get anything other than pure PDF (discount does not apply to dead tree format)

Thanks, I just picked up a copy.

I'm about halfway through this on my Kindle.

I had seen Pandas referenced online and had been meaning to look at it at some point. Reading this book has forced me to pay attention. The Pandas dataframe type is well explained here and is now firing my mind, I'm just spinning off into various applications that hadn't occurred to me before reading this book.

In summary, I would definitely recommend it so far.

As others have mentioned, this is blogspam. Also note the submitter's submission history. Might be time to ban user anotherbot?

all submissions from dzone and no comments... looks like a bot to me.

Nope, person. Try to only post interesting stuff.

Interesting stuff being blogspam adverts from dzone.com? Try again.

http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=anotherbot

I personally prefer Python to R for mathematical computing as well. I find it much more comfortable.

Author, Wes McKinney, is an HN user wesm. Congratulations, Wes!

This is great; I've been looking forward to this book for a while. I'd recommend the author's blog, Quant Pythonista (http://blog.wesmckinney.com/), where he posts details of his various quantitative Python projects. It's great for a beginner such as myself to see real-world applications outside of my own projects.

I read the pre-release version, and it's honestly very, very good. pandas is such a useful package.

Hmmm I use python for most scientific computing applications, but I do a lot of statistical things in R. I've been interested in trying pandas for a while, might be time to give it a shot . . .

I have been using Pandas and R for sometime now. I found Pandas is a little rough and fragile around the edges (for example, it was really hard to figure out how to get the median of a distribution in a dataframe as compared to R - fairly basic stuff really). Things do not quite work they way you want them. As for R inspite of the arcane syntax, the quality and number of packages, the help and the IDE (rstudio) is really good.

From a novice's perspective, this book is incredible. The fact that it's on the O'Reilly network (pay once -- get it in any format, DRM-free) is icing on the cake.

I think the book is excellent for advanced users too.

Wait, how have you read this? Amazon is only accepting preorders.

You can order the e-book on O'Reilly's website:

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920023784.do?code=CFSTNY

Thanks - ordered.

You can get the kindle version now. John Cook may have gotten an advance copy of the book.

Yep, it's on my Safari bookshelf right now.

From the insert date, it appears the rough cut became available there way back in May.

I bought this book when it was in beta form. Thanks for reminding me that I need to update my version. I don't know Python but this book's existence has piqued my interest into moving into it.

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