Data science may never be easy but it’s getting easier to dive in. Buzzwords like “machine learning,” “regression,” and “dimensionality reduction” are just as challenging to understand as ever, but the widespread desire to reap the benefits of these techniques has resulted in several good tools that create assembly lines for data that are ready to pump out the answers we seek.
The secret is similar to what revolutionized manufacturing. Just as standardized parts helped launch the industrial revolution, data scientists at various tools vendors have produced a collection of very powerful and very adaptive analytical routines.
