Why Probabilistic Programming Matters • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Probabilistic Programming Matters

#11

Post by cf » Sun, Jan 06, 2013, 7:40 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #2

The question I'd have about creating a new programming language for a new technique is what does the syntax give you to compensate for the costing of learning a new language?

The trouble with probabilistic programming is it requires very unnatural control flow to run inference on the models. Now there any solutions like Factorie, Figaro and Infer.NET where they are just a library you call into your code. The trouble is because of the representation you end up with much more verbose code.

The cost of learning a new language isn't one you can avoid even if it weren't a language. To write these programs in any system you have to get used to thinking of your data as generated by this unobserved process. Thinking in that way isn't something you can avoid and is actually the main stumbling block.

Re: Why Probabilistic Programming Matters

#12

Post by apw » Sun, Jan 06, 2013, 9:33 AM UTC

cf wrote: post #10

algorias wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had never heard of probabilistic programming languages and was intrigued but unfortunately also rather confused by the submission. So thank you for the excellent pointer.

Anyway, I wrote this post as a precursor to a more substantial set of writings explaining how to practically use these upcoming languages. Most of what I am trying to show here is that while we use specialized algorithms for most of our machine learning at this moment, it is only a temporary solution before it becomes feasible to just specify your models in one of these languages. The point of the code is to show tha…

This is an amazing talk by Tenenbaum. Thank you for posting it!

I'd really like to subscribe to your blog/site so I can read your more substantial set of writings as they appear -- but I can't seem to find the appropriate RSS or ATOM feed on your site. Am I missing something?

Re: Why Probabilistic Programming Matters

#13

Post by cf » Sun, Jan 06, 2013, 10:27 AM UTC

apw wrote: post #12

cf wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyway, I wrote this post as a precursor to a more substantial set of writings explaining how to practically use these upcoming languages. Most of what I am trying to show here is that while we use specialized algorithms for most of our machine learning at this moment, it is only a temporary solution before it becomes feasible to just specify your models in one of these languages. The point of the code is to show tha…

This is an amazing talk by Tenenbaum. Thank you for posting it! I'd really like to subscribe to your blog/site so I can read your more substantial set of writings as they appear -- but I can't seem to find the appropriate RSS or ATOM feed on your site. Am I missing something?

You can subscribe with http://zinkov.com/rss.xml. I get this question a lot, what's the standard way this is solved?

Re: Why Probabilistic Programming Matters

#14

Post by icebraining » Sun, Jan 06, 2013, 10:47 AM UTC

cf wrote: post #13

apw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an amazing talk by Tenenbaum. Thank you for posting it! I'd really like to subscribe to your blog/site so I can read your more substantial set of writings as they appear -- but I can't seem to find the appropriate RSS or ATOM feed on your site. Am I missing something?

You can subscribe with http://zinkov.com/rss.xml . I get this question a lot, what's the standard way this is solved?

You can enable RSS auto-discovery by adding a tag to your HTML:

Any decent RSS reader (e.g. Google Reader, TTRSS) would then detect the feed if the user tried to subscribe to your homepage. Some browsers and browser extensions also provide a one-click subscribe button based on that tag.

It's also common to just put a visible link somewhere on the page, since not everyone knows about auto-discovery.

Re: Why Probabilistic Programming Matters

#15

Post by apw » Sun, Jan 06, 2013, 10:52 AM UTC

cf wrote: post #13

apw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an amazing talk by Tenenbaum. Thank you for posting it! I'd really like to subscribe to your blog/site so I can read your more substantial set of writings as they appear -- but I can't seem to find the appropriate RSS or ATOM feed on your site. Am I missing something?

You can subscribe with http://zinkov.com/rss.xml . I get this question a lot, what's the standard way this is solved?

Thank you. I subscribed.

The usual practice seems to be to put a link to the rss feed (the one you just gave) somewhere on the archive page or at the top of each post page.

Thanks again.