Practical Data Science with R

Preface

This is the book we wish we’d had when we were teaching ourselves that collection of subjects and skills that has come to be referred to as data science. It’s the book that we’d like to hand out to our clients and peers. Its purpose is to explain the relevant parts of statistics, computer science, and machine learning that are crucial to data science.

Data science draws on tools from the empirical sciences, statistics, reporting, analytics, visualization, business intelligence, expert systems, machine learning, databases, data warehousing, data mining, and big data. It’s because we have so many tools that we need a discipline that covers them all. What distinguishes data science itself from the tools and techniques is the central goal ...