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Python, Machine Learning, and Language Wars. A Highly Subjective Point of View

sebastianraschka.com

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Re: Python, Machine Learning, and Language Wars. A Highly Subjective Point of View

#11

Post by rasbt »

rm999 wrote: post #7

I switched from mostly using R to Python about a year ago for gluing together my data pipeline (from data source all the way to production models and frontends/visualizations). It hasn't really impacted what I'm capable of doing or my productivity, except the standard extra googling that comes in the first couple years I use any language. The main reason I went for Python is purely practical: it's a language people o…

I went through the very same process :). I really like your comment, you highlight something that I forgot to mention in this clarity "It makes it easier for me to collaborate in many different ways: share tools with other teams, transfer ownership of my code, get help when I need". Would you mind if I add it as to a "other people's experiences" section at the bottom of the article?

Re: Python, Machine Learning, and Language Wars. A Highly Subjective Point of View

#12

Post by rasbt »

sampo wrote: post #9

Andrew Ng said in the Coursera Machine learning class that according to his experience, students implement the course homework faster in Octave/Matlab than in Python. But yes, the point of that course is to implement and play around with small numerical algorithms, whereas the linked blog is about someone who mainly calls existing machine learning libraries from Python. Ref. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44858…

Interesting! It's hard for a single person to tell, because you can only start one way digging into machine learning. However, from a teacher's perspective, this is a useful observation. I also started with Matlab since it was the language that was used in my classes. However, I think this is also a little bit context dependent: For someone who has never programmed before, Matlab may be more intuitive. I think in an ideal world, you should let your students choose what language they want to use to solve the problem :).

Re: Python, Machine Learning, and Language Wars. A Highly Subjective Point of View

#13

Post by misiti3780 »

Octave/Matlab are "great" but good luck trying to integrate them into a production web application. Since you cant really do that - avoid using them unless you are fine with implementing the same algorithm twice. Matlab licenses cost money also, and the toolboxes cost additional money.

R is useful because there are a lot of resources as it has been along for so long and is used by a large portion of the stats community. It also has a lot of useful libraries that have not been ported over to other languages yet (ggmap!!!). But you still still run into the same problem that you cannot integrate R into a production web application.

I am pretty sure Hadoop streaming does not support R,Octave, or Matlab either

Re: Python, Machine Learning, and Language Wars. A Highly Subjective Point of View

#14

Post by DrNuke »

I love the hacking approach in the post: a tool is only a tool to do something valuable and not the goal itself. The Python ecosystem is the right tool at the right time, nowadays, because of the data science explosion and the need to interact very quickly with non-specialists.

Re: Python, Machine Learning, and Language Wars. A Highly Subjective Point of View

#15

Post by idunning »

rasbt wrote: post #10
idunning wrote: post #5

As someone who almost exclusively uses Julia for their day-to-day work (and side projects), I think most of the author's thoughts about Julia are correct. I think the language is great, and using it makes my life better. There are some packages that are actually better than any of their equivalents in other languages, in my opinion. On the other hand, I've also got a higher tolerance for things not being perfect, I c…

Thanks for the comment (I am the author of this article). > I have a feeling the author will find their way to Julia-land eventually, in a couple of years or so. I have a strong feeling that this will eventually happen :). In an ideal, less busy, world, I would love to use Julia alongside to explore and battle-test it further. Or even develop useful packages, libraries, and functions for it. The truth is, I am curren…

Sure, go ahead!

Re: Python, Machine Learning, and Language Wars. A Highly Subjective Point of View

#16

Post by frozenport »

sampo wrote: post #9

Andrew Ng said in the Coursera Machine learning class that according to his experience, students implement the course homework faster in Octave/Matlab than in Python. But yes, the point of that course is to implement and play around with small numerical algorithms, whereas the linked blog is about someone who mainly calls existing machine learning libraries from Python. Ref. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44858…

Matlab has a better interface, Octave doesnt.

Re: Python, Machine Learning, and Language Wars. A Highly Subjective Point of View

#17

Post by Adam_O »

From the perspective of a student, most of the good online analytics/data analysis/stats courses use R, so it is hard to get away from it while learning the material. Once you get the base concepts down, switching to python shouldn't be hard. I think most people still prefer ggplot2 for visualization though. Whenever I use R I feel like a statistician, I can feel that 'cold rigor' emanating from the language. But in the end I think it is advantageous to wield both languages.

Also I really see Jupyter as a new standard for communication. Your narrative and supporting code all in one place, ready for sharing.

Re: Python, Machine Learning, and Language Wars. A Highly Subjective Point of View

#18

Post by jordigh »

misiti3780 wrote: post #13

Octave/Matlab are "great" but good luck trying to integrate them into a production web application. Since you cant really do that - avoid using them unless you are fine with implementing the same algorithm twice. Matlab licenses cost money also, and the toolboxes cost additional money. R is useful because there are a lot of resources as it has been along for so long and is used by a large portion of the stats communi…

   Octave/Matlab are "great" but good luck trying to integrate them
   into a production web application
What problems are you facing with Octave? It has, in fact, been integrated into a couple of production web applications I know of:

https://octave.im/

http://octave-online.net/

https://www.rollapp.com/app/octave

I have promised a while ago to improve its Python integration so that Python and Octave can be in the same process (there are lots of advantages to that kind of tight integration instead of relying on parsing output through pipes). Perhaps that could help you?

Re: Python, Machine Learning, and Language Wars. A Highly Subjective Point of View

#19

Post by jordigh »

frozenport wrote: post #16
sampo wrote: post #9

Andrew Ng said in the Coursera Machine learning class that according to his experience, students implement the course homework faster in Octave/Matlab than in Python. But yes, the point of that course is to implement and play around with small numerical algorithms, whereas the linked blog is about someone who mainly calls existing machine learning libraries from Python. Ref. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44858…

Matlab has a better interface, Octave doesnt.

Have you found the Octave GUI to be unusable?

Re: Python, Machine Learning, and Language Wars. A Highly Subjective Point of View

#20

Post by jordigh »

rasbt wrote: post #12
sampo wrote: post #9

Andrew Ng said in the Coursera Machine learning class that according to his experience, students implement the course homework faster in Octave/Matlab than in Python. But yes, the point of that course is to implement and play around with small numerical algorithms, whereas the linked blog is about someone who mainly calls existing machine learning libraries from Python. Ref. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44858…

Interesting! It's hard for a single person to tell, because you can only start one way digging into machine learning. However, from a teacher's perspective, this is a useful observation. I also started with Matlab since it was the language that was used in my classes. However, I think this is also a little bit context dependent: For someone who has never programmed before, Matlab may be more intuitive. I think in an…

   For someone who has never programmed before, Matlab may be more
   intuitive.
Yes, this is Matlab's target audience: programmers who will not call themselves "programmers". In recent versions, they have tried even harder to hide the code away from the user, by trying to make everything work by clicking on buttons. I have heard from many Matlab users call themselves "not a programmer". They don't feel like writing software is what they're doing when they're using Matlab.
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