Working with lists in Python

When we began preparing to look at machine-learning in Python with our initial two-part primer a few issues ago, we very briefly touched on the concept of lists. Like a column in a spreadsheet, a list is an incredibly versatile and important component of Python for allowing you to access a sequence of data through a simple numeric index. This month, we’re unpacking lists in more detail and looking at how you can manipulate them in ways that make sense from a machine-learning perspective.

LISTS 101

The majority of machine-learning algorithms rely on receiving data in a common flat or two-dimensional spreadsheet form –