Hey there, data scientist! Have you found yourself struggling with your compute environment, such as package conflicts, this cryptic term called "environment variables", this weird concept called "containers", and technology terms that feel like an entire stack of things to learn? How about being lost amongst your multitude of projects, and not being able to get organized? This book, a linearized form of my freely available knowledge base, will give you a concise and practical guide to getting up-to-speed and organized, to help you do your best data science work.

The content in this book has been battle-tested since 2013 when I first switched over from bench science to computational science. You'll benefit from my distilled experience, where I learned all the hard lessons that come from not applying "best data science practices" to my projects, so you can avoid the same mistakes. You'll also benefit from the countless number of times I have guided newcomer colleagues and data practitioners to data science on getting their systems set up. You'll see the backing philosophies, the "whys" that explain why we ought to do certain things a certain way, as well as manifestations of those "whys".

End the struggle with getting your computer to do what you want. Gain full control over it instead. Come and learn how!