Chapter 1 Hello and Welcome!

Thank you for coming and visiting this living textbook that I am ever-expanding… please keep an eye on this as sometimes when things are quiet simultaneously at my three jobs, I’ll be updating this a lot! However, other times it may stay fairly static at times…

The aim of this work is to being together an introduction to “data mining”, “machine learning”, “analytics” and any other current fashionable buzzwords in this space. The key I’d like to show here is (a) you can code if you want to, (b) content comes in various forms, and (c) hopefully this work is accessible and understandable regardless of your background.

Please, if you like anything I’ve written here, steal it and use it for you own, that’s why I’ve made this freely available for you to use!

P.S. Apologies if there are typos and grammatical errors… I am very dyslexic, which causes some amusing (and sometimes awkward) typographical mistakes… please forgive me and if you want to let me know: write to me at