Tips and hacks¶
I’m collecting some tips from around the site here. This is not comprehensive. If you think having something else here would help, please open an issue or suggest an edit!
5 easy tricks to use this site better, improve it, boost your grade, and help your classmates
The ← and → keys will tab between pages on this website.
The search bar is useful, but sometimes it doesn’t “see” text inside of code blocks, so don’t think “no results” is definitive.
If you have any questions about something on the website: Click on the GH icon in the upper right, and then “open issue”.
Depending on the nature of the question, you can tag me (@donbowen) and/or your classmates (@classmates-2025) to get their attention.
I recommend tagging classmates in most cases - you’ll get more answers, improve the discourse in the class, and often, answering your question will probably help other students.
If you spot errors, typos, have a suggestion to clarify a lesson: Click on the GH icon in the upper right, and then “suggest edit”. Edit the pages as you would, describe the changes, and commit! I’ll probably incorporate it, and you’ll get extra credit!
If you have a new idea for a webpage, tutorial, example… just go ahead and make it and send it to me. Parts of the textbook draw heavily on or were written by past students.
Look at your data and objects frequently! (Print them)
As discussed here.
But I really like ydata profiling for initial examination of variables.
lux is good at “automating certain aspects of the data exploration process. Lux is designed to facilitate faster experimentation with data, even when the user does not have a clear idea of what they are looking for.”
None of those packages substitute for LOOKING at data, but they get you going!