Getting Started – Libraries

In programming, a (software) library is a collection of files. These files are usually referred to as modules. Modules contain functions that can be re-used. Python has an extensive array of libraries. Python standard library is an extensive suite of modules that comes standard with the installation.

When you are more proficient with Python, you can write/build libraries yourself.

Some of the most used libaries widely used are:

• Pandas
• Numpy
• MatplotLib/Seaborn

While the first two are libraries to work with the data to make calculations, the third is
used for visualisations.

To use a library, one has to call it first by using the import function. For example,
to use the pandas library we type
import pandas as pd
the “pd” is the short name for the Pandas library. You could also give it another short name.
However, since nearly everybody uses “pd”, we shall continue using this.
In the “How-to” we will be focusing on Pandas library.