Python Machine Learning By Example - Second Edition

Preprocessing, exploration, and feature engineering

Data mining, a buzzword in the 1990s, is the predecessor of data science (the science of data). One of the methodologies popular in the data mining community is called Cross-Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM). CRISP-DM was created in 1996 and is still used today. I'm not endorsing CRISP-DM, however, I do like its general framework.

The CRISP DM consists of the following phases, which aren't mutually exclusive and can occur in parallel:

• Business understanding: This phase is often taken care of by specialized domain experts. Usually, we have a business person formulate a business problem, such as selling more units of a certain product.
• Data understanding: This is also a ...