Over the past few weeks, I’ve been following a really great blog by Carl Vogel. This blog has an excellent (growing) collection of Python examples based on porting code and examples from R to Python. In general, it is useful for those “interested in the Python data analysis toolkit and its viability as an alternative to R”. Carl draws on examples from Machine Learning for Hackers by Drew Conway and John Miles White, as well as Gelman and Hill’s Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models.
From the blog:
The objective [of this blog] isn’t to just make a key that translates functions and methods in R into Python equivalents. Instead, the goal is to reproduce the results and insights of the analysis in idiomatic Python […] Sometimes there will be a direct translation from a line of R to a line of Python; other times Python will suggest an altogether different approach to the problem.
To make things even more useful for us, Carl has made the code, examples, and IPython notebooks available in his Github repo, which makes it really easy to work through the examples. He’s also open to requests/suggestions, so if you have a good R resource you’d like to see ported to Python, maybe give him a shout?
As an extra bonus, I suggest you check out Blendtec’s hilarious “Will it blend?” ad campaign, from which Carl derived his “Will in Python” name and logo…
Happy coding!
