especially the contributors to scikit-learn without the support and help from this communityin particular from gael varoquauxalex gramfortand olivier griseli would never have become core contributor to scikit-learn or learned to understand this package as well as do now my thanks also go out to all the other contributors who donate their time to improve and maintain this package ' also thankful for the discussions with many of my colleagues and peers that helped me understand the challenges of machine learning and gave me ideas for structuring textbook among the people talk to about machine learningi specifically want to thank brian mcfeedaniela huttenkoppenjoel nothmangilles louppehugo bowne-andersonsven kreisalice zhengkyunghyun chopablo baberasand dan cervone my thanks also go out to rachel rakovwho was an eager beta tester and proofreader of an early version of this bookand helped me shape it in many ways on the personal sidei want to thank my parentsharald and margotand my sistermiriamfor their continuing support and encouragement also want to thank the many people in my life whose love and friendship gave me the energy and support to undertake such challenging task from sarah would like to thank meg blanchettewithout whose help and guidance this project would not have even existed thanks to celia la and brian carlson for reading in the early days thanks to the 'reilly folks for their endless patience and finallythanks to dtsfor your everlasting and endless support xii preface