Introduction
Overview¶
In this introduction, we will learn what pandas and matplotlib are and how to install them.
What is a Framework?¶
Often it takes quite a lot of work to create a program that solves a particular problem. Some sections can be re-used and adapted however to make life easier for future tasks that require similar solution approaches. For very common fundamental problems, we write dedicated software that is meant to be adapted to solve specific variants of these problems. This dedicated software is called a framework.
Frameworks are not complete programs in themselves but instead serve as building blocks. Pandas and matplotlib are such frameworks that allow us to easier create tools for data processing and visualization.
About pandas¶
Pandas is a data processing framework. It represents data in table-like structures and offers facilities to manipulate, filter and re-arrange this data.
Detailed information can be found on the official pandas website.
Installing pandas¶
Pandas can be installed via your usual Python package manager.
There are further options for installing the framework. Details can be found on the pandas installation page.
About matplotlib¶
Matplotlib is a plotting framework. It can be used to generate graphical plots from given data and fine-tune details of the representation.
Detailed information can be found on the official matplotlib website.
Installing matplotlib¶
Matplotlib can be installed via your usual Python package manager.
There are further options for installing the framework. Details can be found on the matplotlib installation page.
More than one way
There are usually many ways to solve the same programming problem. All solutions presented here should be regarded as “one way of doing it”, however there are certainly many other ways to achieve the same results.
Key points¶
- Frameworks are building blocks for solving common programming problems
- Pandas is a data processing framework
- Matplotlib is a data visualization framework