4 ms·

I disagree that RMS is necessarily better than ESL in some meaningful way. The two are complementary. It's like saying a gravel truck is better than a motorcycl

by apathy 10y ago

I disagree that RMS is necessarily better than ESL in some meaningful way. The two are complementary. It's like saying a gravel truck is better than a motorcycle: it all depends on what you want to do with it. Re: "do I really need it?": hell if I know, I'm not you. But my assertion was specifically that if you want to design your own methods (i.e. do research) you need to understand what they are doing. This doesn't seem like a controversial position; an expert is simply a master of the fundamentals.

blahi 10y ago
But I thought I made it clear that I am not looking to do research. I'm not even looking for state of the art performance. I am looking for that 30% of the skills which allow me to do 70% of the tasks. Like RMS. Because outside of Google/Microsoft/Amazon et al, domain knowledge beats superior math skills 10 out of 10 times.
- apathy 10y ago
  You should do whatever you like, but remember that domain knowledge and math skills are not mutually exclusive. If the problem you need to solve for a major customer or project happens to be in that 30%, it may come in handy. Linear algebra and calculus (to a lesser degree) are foundational for a great many things. Got missing data? K-NN or nuclear norm matrix completion (or marginalizing over the rest) can help. Systems of differential equations? Use a matrix exponential. You are free to do whatever you like. A bus driver doesn't need to know how to rebuild an engine. But if you want to race cars you'll get a lot further if you do know how.
  - blahi 10y ago
    If I have missing values, I can use multiple imputation or even simple averaging and the hit I will take will be negligible. I simply do not work in the remaining 30%. I can tell if the work is going to be above my head and refuse the project in those cases. So after all this back and forth, I still don't know if there is a book similar to RMS in scope, for Bayesian Nets.
    - apathy 10y ago
      Try http://www.r-bayesian-networks.org http://www.r-bayesian-networks.org

by apathy 10y ago

blahi 10y ago

But I thought I made it clear that I am not looking to do research. I'm not even looking for state of the art performance. I am looking for that 30% of the skills which allow me to do 70% of the tasks. Like RMS. Because outside of Google/Microsoft/Amazon et al, domain knowledge beats superior math skills 10 out of 10 times.

apathy 10y ago
You should do whatever you like, but remember that domain knowledge and math skills are not mutually exclusive. If the problem you need to solve for a major customer or project happens to be in that 30%, it may come in handy. Linear algebra and calculus (to a lesser degree) are foundational for a great many things. Got missing data? K-NN or nuclear norm matrix completion (or marginalizing over the rest) can help. Systems of differential equations? Use a matrix exponential. You are free to do whatever you like. A bus driver doesn't need to know how to rebuild an engine. But if you want to race cars you'll get a lot further if you do know how.
- blahi 10y ago
  If I have missing values, I can use multiple imputation or even simple averaging and the hit I will take will be negligible. I simply do not work in the remaining 30%. I can tell if the work is going to be above my head and refuse the project in those cases. So after all this back and forth, I still don't know if there is a book similar to RMS in scope, for Bayesian Nets.
  - apathy 10y ago
    Try http://www.r-bayesian-networks.org http://www.r-bayesian-networks.org