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Ask HN: How can a front-end developer dive into machine learning?

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Re: Ask HN: How can a front-end developer dive into machine learning?

#141

Post by hello_newman »

Jackalopiate wrote: post #133
hello_newman wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly how i feel. I dropped out of school at 19, taught myself to code, went to a hack school, and have been working as a rails dev for the last 4-ish years. I realized I wanted to go into ML, and instead of trying to take shortcuts, at 24 I enrolled in my local community college to finish a degree in comp-sci. Looking at 8+ math classes (from Geometry to Calculus 3), but the only reason why I'm doing it is…

Hey its me, your past. Really though, I'm currently 20 and dropped out of school last year (GE's kicked my ass), and started working full time as a prototyper. I know I am probably going to have to go back at some point, but what really made you decide to go back? Was it for a higher payroll, or better fulfillment?

I want to master my craft, and i believe the way to do that is to have the application and the theory. being a rails + mobile dev teaches a bunch about the application side of programming and I find it fascinating.

In terms of the age thing, I get it. At 19 I hated being at school because I wanted to be making $20+/hour working on websites. But now at 25 and right under 6-figures, I see that I can simply work during the day and then go to school at night. It just means I have to do that for 4+ years. I started at 24, but I will not be done until I am 30. So, if I would have done it right the first time, and not dropped out, I __might__ have been further.

I don't regret it tho. I rolled the dice and although I was trying to hit the start-up lottery at that age (why I got into programming), I ended up on a great career with incredibly valuable experiences that I would not have had if I didn't drop out at 19.

8/10 would do again.

Re: Ask HN: How can a front-end developer dive into machine learning?

#142

Post by seibelj »

jdlshore wrote: post #137
brookside wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posts like this definitely give me a nice flare-up of imposter syndrome. Had not heard the acronym IPC. So I guess I don't even know basic shit. As a bootcamp graduate, what do you want me to ... do? I can't go back in time and major in CS. My employer is satisfied with my work and I build things I'm asked to build independently. Should I give up a startup salary, inflated as it may be, and ship myself off to a CS mo…

Don't worry about it. Keep working and learning and focus on doing great work that makes people happy. As long as you take the time to learn why something works, rather than just cutting-and-pasting from StackOverflow, you'll be fine. Frankly, the recommendations @seibelj is making are in a particular niche--OS fundamentals--and one that I'm guessing makes him feel smart knowing about. But they aren't necessarily rel…

Not trying to feel self important, I'm saying why I'm not hiring bootcamp people anymore. I could go through a litany of topics from OS, algorithms, networking, architecture, languages... if you are a magic box programmer, don't be shocked if I ask you how the magic box works and you have no clue.

Re: Ask HN: How can a front-end developer dive into machine learning?

#143

Post by blusterXY »

brookside wrote: post #128
seibelj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 8 years of experience plus solid references and projects speaks for itself. It's a resume that lists a 3 month boot camp, a github full of forked projects with no original commits (plus the obligatory ToDo app in rails), Senior Software Engineer title, $100k salary demand, leaving their first professional programming job after 6 months, can't speak knowledgeably about basic shit like IPC. I don't... have time…

Posts like this definitely give me a nice flare-up of imposter syndrome. Had not heard the acronym IPC. So I guess I don't even know basic shit. As a bootcamp graduate, what do you want me to ... do? I can't go back in time and major in CS. My employer is satisfied with my work and I build things I'm asked to build independently. Should I give up a startup salary, inflated as it may be, and ship myself off to a CS mo…

I'm a self-taught developer with significant programming experience who has worked as CTO of a successful startup (multimillion dollar exit) founded by others, has sold one of my own businesses for six figures, and who currently runs several independent, profitable projects.

In more than a dozen years of programming, never once have I had to talk to someone about IPC. And if someone pulled that sort of higher-than-thou test-by-acronym-recogition at a job interview I would laugh at them unless the salary is literally 200k and in an area which involves kernel hacking, which is pretty much the only situation in which I think it would be reasonable.

Reality is that there is a bias against hiring self-taught people and many common practices like these are basically screeners against that as opposed to measures of actual skill and expertise. One tip if you are job-hunting is to ask potential employers to review your code before you jump through their interview hoops. The places/people who are serious about hiring will do it. Those who will not are more likely to filter using this sort of arcane minutiae and are not worth your time unless they are paying for you to attend the interview.

Your salary expectations are also quite reasonable fwiw.

Re: Ask HN: How can a front-end developer dive into machine learning?

#144

Post by qorrect »

sabman83 wrote: post #91
qorrect wrote: post #72

I am a long time developer who is trying to move into data science / ML. What I've found after taking off for 12 months of self-study, is that it quickly dissolves into you must know math . As far as I can tell, its take a problem, map it into a vector space, then use the full power of mathematical analysis on it . There is a huge push by large companies to make AI as a service though, and for that, you only really n…

So where are you at in terms of job search and preparation?

I'm about 3 months from completing this course https://www.udacity.com/ai, having finished the coursera ML course and the udacity data anlayst class.

Honestly I haven't started the job search, I plan to start in earnest in about a month.

Udacity seems sure about placing us in jobs though, apparently, the market has a great demand and a small supply.

Do you have any advice ?

Re: Ask HN: How can a front-end developer dive into machine learning?

#145

Post by qorrect »

eshvk wrote: post #90
qorrect wrote: post #72

I am a long time developer who is trying to move into data science / ML. What I've found after taking off for 12 months of self-study, is that it quickly dissolves into you must know math . As far as I can tell, its take a problem, map it into a vector space, then use the full power of mathematical analysis on it . There is a huge push by large companies to make AI as a service though, and for that, you only really n…

> Sure I have a new found love for math, but I'm not going to be accepted as a mathematician ever without the rigor of a formal education I think there are two separate things here: 1. Being a research mathematician requires a degree of expertise which is easier to come by with formal education. 2. Knowing how to use APIs and make correct distributional assumptions; despite the bullshit fed by our industry, it is not…

Thank you for saying that, I was feeling a bit down yesterday.

Re: Ask HN: How can a front-end developer dive into machine learning?

#146

Post by mrdrozdov »

mrdrozdov wrote: post #55
ardivekar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which college and which program, if you don't mind sharing? Edit: for the Master's degree.

I did my undergrad at U. of Michigan, and my master's at NYU. I would highly recommend both programs, although there are many great ones out there. I probably have a list of ~30 schools that I think would be excellent for a master's in CS with a focus on machine learning (although it is worth considering a master's in Data Science, as this makes sense if ML is your primary interest). I am happy to give more targeted…

I received a handful of emails specifically asking for the list of schools I was referring to. Here is a list of 31. There are certainly schools that I have missed, but I think that any of these programs offer a strong curriculum and community that would prepare a student for a career working in data science.

https://gist.github.com/mrdrozdov/bd523362210892e6a4e11eb575...

Re: Ask HN: How can a front-end developer dive into machine learning?

#147

Post by webmaven »

brookside wrote: post #128
seibelj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 8 years of experience plus solid references and projects speaks for itself. It's a resume that lists a 3 month boot camp, a github full of forked projects with no original commits (plus the obligatory ToDo app in rails), Senior Software Engineer title, $100k salary demand, leaving their first professional programming job after 6 months, can't speak knowledgeably about basic shit like IPC. I don't... have time…

Posts like this definitely give me a nice flare-up of imposter syndrome. Had not heard the acronym IPC. So I guess I don't even know basic shit. As a bootcamp graduate, what do you want me to ... do? I can't go back in time and major in CS. My employer is satisfied with my work and I build things I'm asked to build independently. Should I give up a startup salary, inflated as it may be, and ship myself off to a CS mo…

Eh, try to settle the impostor syndrome down. It's hard, I know, but not particularly warranted in this case.

Day to day, I don't think I know anyone who would actually use the acronym IPC over the expanded term "interprocess communication", assuming the subject even comes up.

The generic term just isn't particularly useful, given the wide variety of mechanisms included. Instead, you will hear developers talk about pipes, sockets, ports, connections, queues, and so on as may be warranted.

Knowing when to use a pipe and when to use a socket is important, but the fact that both are grouped together as "interprocess communication" mechanisms along with a bad idea like shared memory really isn't.

Re: Ask HN: How can a front-end developer dive into machine learning?

#148

Post by webmaven »

brookside wrote: post #138
jdlshore wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry about it. Keep working and learning and focus on doing great work that makes people happy. As long as you take the time to learn why something works, rather than just cutting-and-pasting from StackOverflow, you'll be fine. Frankly, the recommendations @seibelj is making are in a particular niche--OS fundamentals--and one that I'm guessing makes him feel smart knowing about. But they aren't necessarily rel…

Thanks for the very nice words. I realize, while still learning and progressing, at this stage in my coding life I'm an electrician, not an electrical engineer. Which can be ok - the world needs electricians too.

Heh. I often use an analogy to different kinds of woodworking, it implies a wide variety of both skill sets and skill levels.

Re: Ask HN: How can a front-end developer dive into machine learning?

#149

Post by webmaven »

seibelj wrote: post #142
jdlshore wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry about it. Keep working and learning and focus on doing great work that makes people happy. As long as you take the time to learn why something works, rather than just cutting-and-pasting from StackOverflow, you'll be fine. Frankly, the recommendations @seibelj is making are in a particular niche--OS fundamentals--and one that I'm guessing makes him feel smart knowing about. But they aren't necessarily rel…

Not trying to feel self important, I'm saying why I'm not hiring bootcamp people anymore. I could go through a litany of topics from OS, algorithms, networking, architecture, languages... if you are a magic box programmer, don't be shocked if I ask you how the magic box works and you have no clue.

Um. You do know that a lot of folks manage to graduate with a degree and basically have only ever programmed in one language like Java and wouldn't recognize a unit test, build system, or a version control system if it bit them, right?

Not to mention starting every task with implementing a linked-list or sorting algorithm from scratch.

Re: Ask HN: How can a front-end developer dive into machine learning?

#150

Post by webmaven »

reticentraccoon wrote: post #97
intellectronica wrote: post #33

I did Udacity's Deep Learning and Machine Learning courses and found them to be a really great introduction, and enough for me to continue on my own. I'm not a front-end dev, but also definitely not a mathematician or computer scientist. You should be able to learn enough to do some cool stuff. - Make sure you know Python well - pretty much everything interesting in ML is in Python. If you already know JS this should…

From where to get the latest papers?

The latest papers are posted to http://arxiv.org, but a more curated approach is very helpful.

So take a look at http://www.gitxiv.com and http://www.arxiv-sanity.com

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