Working with big data for the first time? This unique guide shows you how to use simple, fun, and elegant tools working with Apache Hadoop. You'll learn how to break problems into efficient data transformations to meet most of your analysis needs. It's an approach that not only works well for programmers just beginning to tackle big data, but for anyone using Hadoop. Written by Philip Kromer, founder and CTO at Infochimps, this book presents real data to describe patterns found in many problem domains-such as statistical summaries and advanced queries against spatial or time-series data sets. You'll also learn how and when to integrate custom components or extend the toolkit. Learn from detailed example programs that apply Hadoop to interesting problems in context Gain advice and best practices for efficient software development Discover how to think at scale with a deep understanding of how data must flow through the cluster to effect transformations