When Guido van Rossum released Python as a side-kick project in the year 1991, he had no idea it would turn into the fastest growing computer language in the world! If trends are to be followed, Python can turn into the goto language for quick prototyping.
Python has shot to the most wanted language of the year 2017 as per a survey from StackOverflow! One of the reasons is simply because it is simple!
Why is it used in Machine Learning?
Machine learning is to make use of data to make a machine make an informed and intelligent decision. It is basically identifying patterns in data. A crucial task for a machine learning engineer is extracting, defining, processing, cleaning, arranging and understanding data in order to develop intelligent algorithms. Let us see why Python is a preferred language for Machine Learning:
- It is easy to understand: Concepts of calculus, linear algebra can be so complex that they extract maximum effort from us. But with Python’s implementation, it makes it easy for a Machine Learning engineer to validate ideas.
- A package for everything: The kind of data that gets input is unstructured, incomplete, raw, bad, and large but Python can handle it. Sometimes the data input can be in the form of images, or videos. Sometimes it is simply a set of points, or a collection of huge documents that is spread across audio files and various other domains and sometimes it can simply be a lot of numbers. With a large repository of packages, and many improvements still under development, Python makes it easy to handle data.
Working with text? Try numpy, nltk, scikit
Working with images? Try numpy, scikit, opencv
Working with audio? Try librose
Would like to see data more clearly? Try seaborn, matplotlib, scikit
Want to solve a problem that is machine learning related? Try scikit, pandas
Want to throw in web applications? Try Django
Would need scientific computing? Try Scipy
Using Deep Learning? Try pytorch, tensorflow
Using these packages requires zero learning curve! When you understand Python, you can just implement any of these packages easily. They are all free for use under the GNU license.
- Works well for algorithms: Even if C is being used for machine learning, a lot of developers use Python to implement algorithm for specific tasks.
- Python is a great development program for data mining.
This is why learning Python thoroughly is crucial before you go into studying machine learning and artificial intelligence. The Python approach to machine learning requires you to go through a very specialized course that also gives you Python training right from the basics. This is especially important if you have no experience with Python. IIHT’s specialized Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning stack prepares you just for this! Log on to http://www.aimlstack.iiht.com/ for more details!