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Review of Data Analysis with Open Source Tools
Data Analysis with Open Source Tools is an excellent primer for those who need an overview of the field of Data Analysis, along with pointers to some of the most popular free and open source tools.
The book does have it’s short comings. There are places where the text is either confusing to read, or just wrong, and they should have a website with links to all of the tools presented, along with the data used with the examples in order to make it easier for the reader to follow along with the examples and jump-start them playing with the tools presented. The presentation of a set of analytic techniques, followed by a workshop where one of the tools is introduced to work through a real example is a strong point of this book. I also appreciated the informal description of classical statistics to help provide context to the subject. This is something that should accompany any introductory text on classical statistics. It both gives an opportunity to see the techniques in action and provides some pointers for those wanting more hands-on experience with a set of techniques. Overall, I would recommend this as the best primer to Data Analysis techniques that I have come across, but it still fall short of being an excellent book.
