Python Study Note: Three important Python packages

The Numpy provides a very convenient data structure, however, it is still not quite handy to directly run data analysis or machine learning on. To achieve the goal, three packages are needed:

1. pandas --- provide high-performance, easy-to-use data structures and data analysis tools
2. scikit-learn --- simple and efficient tools for data mining and data analysis
3. matplotlib --- 2D plotting library which produces publication quality figures in a variety of hardcopy formats and interactive environments across platforms

Both pandas and scikit-learn rely matplotlib as its plot tools, and both of them are based on NumPy and SciPy for basic data structure and scientific computation.

The matplotlib has massive documentations on its website. Since I only need to use matplotlib to visualize my data analysis, not necessarily publish a paper based on that, its matplotlib.pyplot module is sufficient to me. The detailed documentation is HERE.

In later posts, I would like to focus on Pandas and scikit-learn for data analysis and modeling.