Data science

Stage 1 · Lesson 1 of 7

Notebooks and a clean environment

Python for data: NumPy and pandas

work in notebooks: documents where code, output, charts and notes sit together and run one cell at a time. and Google Colab are the Python choices; with Quarto is the R one. Alongside the notebook, set up a project environment, a folder with its own list of package versions, so the analysis runs the same on another computer.

In Python that is a with a requirements file; in R it is renv with its . Keep every project in its own Git repository from day one.

Common traprunning cells out of order for weeks until the notebook only works in your open session: restart and run everything from the top before you trust or share a result.

A question to check yourself, an AI practice session and 2 cheat sheet entries come with the full roadmap. Unlock

Resources for this stage

Start with· follow one of these

  • CoursePaid
    Grokking Python Fundamentals

    Design Gurus · Beginner · $50

    Solid Python basics first: data types, collections, functions and files, the ground pandas stands on

  • CourseFree
    Kaggle Learn

    Kaggle · Beginner

    Free: the Python and Pandas courses, short lessons with exercises that run in the browser

Practise

  • Pick one dataset on a topic you care about and repeat every operation in this stage on it

Keep handy

  • The indexing, merging and reshaping pages answer most "how do I" questions

  • The absolute beginners guide, then the reference when an array does something unexpected

Also worth your time

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