Numpy Overview - What is It Used for

Quick reference

• 00:05 Okay, so we've installed NumPy, we've got it imported into our program,
• 00:09 here into our data Jupyter Notebook.
• 00:11 Now, before we start learning actually how to use it,
• 00:14 which we're going to do in the next video, I want to spend just a minute or
• 00:17 two talking about what it is and why it's important.
• 00:20 So NumPy stands for numerical Python.
• 00:23 It just does what it says, it deals with numbers, it deals with data.
• 00:27 So we're learning data analysis, the cornerstone of data analysis is data,
• 00:31 big groups of numbers, right?
• 00:33 NumPy handles those numbers.
• 00:36 And it does it, using primarily something called a NumPy array, and
• 00:40 a NumPy array is just np.array and then your NumPy array.
• 00:47 And we'll talk about this in the next video, but primarily,
• 00:50 this is all a NumPy array is.
• 00:52 Now, throughout the rest of this course we're going to be spending a lot of time
• 00:56 learning about something called Pandas.
• 00:58 And that's where we're going to have the most fun,
• 01:00 that's where we're going to do the most cool, interesting things.
• 01:03 But Pandas like so many things with Python and data analysis, relies on NumPy
• 01:09 behind the scenes to be the real workhorse to really handle the data itself.
• 01:16 And that's why NumPy is so important.
• 01:18 And a lot of times people kind of gloss over NumPy, right?
• 01:21 Because it's not that exciting, it's just handling the data, right?
• 01:24 That's not fun, we want to do stuff with the data.
• 01:27 And we use other things for that like Pandas.
• 01:30 But handling the data is important too, and the more you learn about Numpy,
• 01:35 the stronger you're going to be at data analysis with
• 01:38 every other tool that we use, Pandas, Scikit-learn, everything else, right?
• 01:42 So resist the urge to kind of skip over this section with NumPy stuff, right?
• 01:47 I know it's not that exciting but this is important, and
• 01:51 the better grasp you have on this, the more it is sort of instinctual, right?
• 01:56 The less you have to think about it,
• 01:57 the more you just know it, the better off you're going to be in the long run.
• 02:00 So like I said, the cornerstone of NumPy is something called a NumPy array.
• 02:05 And we'll really look at these in the next video, but
• 02:08 a NumPy array is basically just an array.
• 02:11 And if you're familiar with Python, you already deal with arrays,
• 02:14 Python calls them lists.
• 02:16 So I don't want to get into much details in this video,
• 02:19 I just want to introduce what NumPy is and why it's important.
• 02:22 When you think NumPy, think arrays,
• 02:25 think large amounts of data, NumPy is going to handle that stuff.
• 02:29 And the reason why we use NumPy arrays versus just a Python list is
• 02:33 NumPy is created with C programming language which is super, super fast, and
• 02:37 it can handle large amounts of data faster than a regular Python list would.
• 02:42 So that's really why we we like NumPy when we get right down to it.
• 02:47 So like I said, not the most interesting thing in the world but
• 02:50 super important and without further ado, let's just dive in here and
• 02:54 start playing around with this, because it is kind of fun.
• 02:57 I like to say that it's not that fun but I'm a geek and I like this stuff,
• 03:01 so it is fun to me.
• 03:02 So in the next video, we'll jump in and we'll learn how to use NumPy arrays,
• 03:05 we'll start playing around with them and that'll be in the next video.

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