Activity 1: Data Analysis with Pandas, Matplotlib, and Seaborn

In this chapter we’ll start working on a series of application examples—activities dealing with topics and applications that are attracting a growing interest within the Python community. We won’t be developing the complete, more extensive programs you have become familiar with in the project chapters. Rather, we’ll use Python for practical analysis and exploration, in an incremental fashion, which is often how you’d approach a problem in a professional or academic environment. In this first activity, we’ll be shifting gears noticeably. Python, with all its libraries, is not limited to being just a development tool (such as Java, C++, PHP, etc.); it is also an excellent tool for carrying out interactive analyses and calculations, just like specialized languages such as R and Matlab. And that’s where we’ll start—with some proper data analysis.