Tools for data science: Using the right ones for the job

You've probably heard the sayings many times: "You're only as good as your tools." These have never been truer than in the world of data science and machine learning. When I was first learning data science and machine learning, I tried a sample data science project using a data set from a recent medical study. For the study, patients came for appointments where investigators took their vital signs (weight, blood pressure, pulse, temperature, etc.) and administered some number of medical tests. The tests could create a few values or many values, depending on which tests the investigators ran on the date of the patient's appointment and depending on how long they'd been part of the study and how often they received tests.