Think Like a Data Scientist

Think Like a Data Scientist presents a step-by-step approach to data science, combining analytic, programming, and business perspectives into easy-to-digest techniques and thought processes for solving real world data-centric problems.

Data collected from customers, scientific measurements, IoT sensors, and so on is valuable only if you understand it. Data scientists revel in the interesting and rewarding challenge of observing, exploring, analyzing, and interpreting this data. Getting started with data science means more than mastering analytic tools and techniques, however; the real magic happens when you begin to think like a data scientist. This book will get you there.

Think Like a Data Scientist teaches you a step-by-step approach to solving real-world data-centric problems. By breaking down carefully crafted examples, you'll learn to combine analytic, programming, and business perspectives into a repeatable process for extracting real knowledge from data. As you read, you'll discover (or remember) valuable statistical techniques and explore powerful data science software. More importantly, you'll put this knowledge together using a structured process for data science. When you've finished, you'll have a strong foundation for a lifetime of data science learning and practice.

• The data science process, step-by-step
• How to anticipate problems
• Dealing with uncertainty
• Best practices in software and scientific thinking

Readers need beginner programming skills and knowledge of basic statistics.

Brian Godsey has worked in software, academia, finance, and defense and has launched several data-centric start-ups.