Ordered integer encoding

Ordered integer encoding replaces categories with integers according to the order of a target variable. This is often the mean of the target variable within each category. If we encode the Neighborhood column using this method, we will replace the neighborhood name with the average of the SalePrice column for that neighborhood. The ordered integer encoding method ensures a monotonic relationship between the encoded variable and the target, beneficial for linear models. Let’s apply it using pandas:

1. First, import pandas, and train_test_split from scikit-learn to prepare for applying the encoding. Import matplotlib.pyplot, which you will use to make graphs to show the relationship between the encoded categorical variables and the target variable:

   import pandas as pd
   from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
   import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

2. Next, set up the sample data and split it into train and test datasets using train_test_split....