We recommend that you go through any good Python programming book or online tutorials or videos, if you are a beginner in Python. You can also have a look at DataCamp (http://www.datacamp.com) to learn Python using interactive lessons.

We also recommend that you learn some basic concepts about the Matplotlib library in Python. You can try out this tutorial for that: https://www.datacamp.com/community/tutorials/matplotlib-tutorial-python.

You don't need to have anything installed on your system for this book before starting it. We will cover all the installation steps in the first chapter.