Changes in the Second Edition

The second edition mainly updates all the code and libraries to the latest versions at the time of writing. Most of the code form the first edition was unaffected. Bits of the plotting code and machine learning data modeling code ended up changing over the years and were updated.

From a pedagogical perspective, the main Pandas chapters have also been updated with proper learning objectives, and the introductory chapters have accompanying concept maps to help educators plan a learning path, and for learners to visualize how concepts are related to one another. These were all topics I’ve learned about while doing my dissertation, and I hope they become useful for learners and educators. The book also includes access to online bonus chapters on geopandas, Dask, and creating interactive graphics with Altair.

I’ve also rearranged the chapters in the second edition based on my experiences when I teach workshops. Part I of the book contains the most important bits of information that I aim to cover in my workshops. The rest of the book can be thought of as data processing details after the more fundamental topics are covered. The chapters that have big changes from the first edition have a section in the chapter’s introduction on the details of what has changed.

Many of the libraries and tools mentioned in the conclusion chapters of the book will also have freely available chapters to accompany this book to help you extend your learning.