What is Data Science?
Data Science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, algorithms, and systems to extract knowledge and insights from structured and unstructured data. It involves the application of various techniques such as statistics, mathematics, computer science, and domain-specific knowledge to analyze, interpret and make sense of data.
Data science can be used in various fields such as business, healthcare, finance, marketing, social media, and many others. The goal of data science is to provide actionable insights that can help organizations make data-driven decisions and optimize their operations.
What Are Data Science Tools?
Data Science Tools are specialized software programs that assist data scientists in collecting, analyzing, visualizing, and interpreting large and complex data sets. These tools help automate data processing tasks, enabling data scientists to extract meaningful insights from data faster and more efficiently.
Some of the commonly used data science tools include programming languages such as Python and R, data visualization tools like Tableau and Power BI, and databases such as MySQL and MongoDB that store data and provide the ability to query and manipulate data. Python and R are popular programming languages in data science due to their versatility and vast libraries of data science modules.
Here are the top 10 data science platforms, in no particular order:
- Jupyter Notebook/JupyterLab: An open-source web application that allows for interactive data exploration, visualization, and collaborative coding in various programming languages.
- TensorFlow: An open-source machine learning framework developed by Google, widely used for building and deploying deep learning models.
- PyTorch: An open-source machine learning library that provides a flexible and dynamic approach to building neural networks.
- Google Cloud AI Platform: A suite of tools and services provided by Google Cloud for building, training, and deploying machine learning models.
- Amazon SageMaker: A fully-managed service by Amazon Web Services (AWS) that enables developers to build, train, and deploy machine learning models at scale.
- KNIME Analytics Platform: An open-source data analytics and integration platform that allows for visual programming and data preprocessing.
- MATLAB: A programming and analytics tool that offers data analysis, visualization, and machine learning capabilities.
- Tableau: A data visualization and analytics tool that allows for interactive data exploration and reporting.
- RapidMiner: A data science platform that supports data preparation, modeling, and deployment of machine learning models.
- Google Cloud AutoML: A suite of machine learning products by Google Cloud that enables users to build custom models without extensive coding.
1. Jupyter Notebook/JupyterLab:
Jupyter Notebook is an open-source web application that allows users to create and share documents containing live code, equations, visualizations, and narrative text. Uses include data cleaning and transformation, numerical simulation, statistical modeling, data visualization, and machine learning. It supports over 40 programming languages, and notebooks can be shared with others using email, Dropbox, GitHub, and the Jupyter Notebook Viewer. It is used with JupyterLab, a web-based IDE for Jupyter notebooks, code, and data, with a configurable user interface that supports a wide range of workflows in data science, scientific computing, and machine learning.
2. TensorFlow
TensorFlow is an open-source machine learning platform developed by Google that’s particularly popular for implementing deep learning neural networks. The platform takes inputs in the form of tensors that are akin to NumPy multidimensional arrays and then uses a graph structure to flow the data through a list of computational operations specified by developers. It also offers an eager execution programming environment that runs operations individually without graphs, which provides more flexibility for research and debugging machine learning models.
Google made TensorFlow open source in 2015, and Release 1.0.0 became available in 2017. TensorFlow uses Python as its core programming language and now incorporates the Keras high-level API for building and training models. Alternatively, a TensorFlow.js library enables model development in JavaScript, and custom operations — or ops, for short — can be built in C++.
3. PyTorch
An open-source framework used to build and train deep learning models based on neural networks, PyTorch is touted by its proponents for supporting fast and flexible experimentation and a seamless transition to production deployment. The Python library was designed to be easier to use than Torch, a precursor machine learning framework that’s based on the Lua programming language. PyTorch also provides more flexibility and speed than Torch, according to its creators.
First released publicly in 2017, PyTorch uses arraylike tensors to encode model inputs, outputs and parameters. Its tensors are similar to the multidimensional arrays supported by NumPy, but PyTorch adds built-in support for running models on GPUs. NumPy arrays can be converted into tensors for processing in PyTorch, and vice versa.
4. Google Cloud AI Platform
Google Cloud AI offers one of the largest machine learning stacks in the space and offers an expanding list of products for a variety of use cases. The product is fully managed and offers excellent governance with interpretable models. Key features include a built-in Data Labeling Service, AutoML, model validation via AI Explanations, a What-If Tool which helps you understand model outputs, cloud model deployment with Prediction, and MLOps via the Pipeline tool.
5. Amazon SageMaker
Amazon SageMaker is a fully-managed service that enables developers and data scientists to quickly and easily build, train, and deploy machine learning models at any scale. Amazon SageMaker removes all the barriers that typically slow down developers who want to use machine learning.
6. KNIME Analytics Platform
KNIME shines in end-to-end workflows for ML and predictive analytics. It pulls big data from huge repositories including Google and Twitter and is often used as an enterprise solution. You can also move to the cloud through Microsoft Azure and AWS integrations. It’s well-rounded, and the vision and roadmap are better than most competitors.
7. MATLAB
Data analysis in the finance sector is exploding, and MATLAB is designed for use within those parameters. It has excellent customer relations and is easy to understand. Even if you aren’t in Fintech, it’s an attractive option for cloud processing, neural systems, and machine learning, allowing you to scrub insane amounts of data (including unconventional data such as IoT data). It’s expensive for the citizen data scientist, but if you’ve got the budget behind your organization, it could be worth it.
8. Tableau
Tableau is referred to as a data visualization software that comes with powerful graphics to create interactive visualizations. It is majorly used by industries working in the field of business intelligence and analytics.
The most significant feature of Tableau is its ability to interact with different spreadsheets, databases, online analytical processing (OLAP) cubes, etc. Apart from these features, Tableau can also visualize geographical data by plotting longitudes and latitudes on maps.
9. RapidMiner
RapidMiner is good for solutions requiring sophistication, but it never loses its ease of use. It’s highly approachable and one of the few platforms to strike such a good balance that it’s beloved by “citizen data scientists” and highly trained data scientists with advanced degrees. It’s excellent for visual workflow and for when you need an ML boost.
10. Google Cloud AutoML
Google Cloud AI offers one of the largest machine learning stacks in the space and offers an expanding list of products for a variety of use cases. The product is fully managed and offers excellent governance with interpretable models. Key features include a built-in Data Labeling Service, AutoML, model validation via AI Explanations, a What-If Tool which helps you understand model outputs, cloud model deployment with Prediction, and MLOps via the Pipeline tool.
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