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Stan is probably the most mature, stable PPL, and it's an extremely popular tool, although it isn't really deep-learning-adjacent so gets much less hype. It's

Stan is probably the most mature, stable PPL, and it's an extremely popular tool, although it isn't really deep-learning-adjacent so gets much less hype. It's generally used more for modeling and prediction than for creating "products", if that makes sense. More popular among people with statistics or social science backgrounds than among programmers and computer scientists. If you dig around Stan-related websites you can see various companies and institutions that use it. One I found quite quickly was Metrum Research Group, which does consulting work for the pharmaceutical industry. https://metrumrg.com/ https://metrumrg.com/

marmaduke 8y ago
Generable is a Stan based startup which employs some of the core Stan devs http://www.generable.com http://www.generable.com
- kgwgk 8y ago
  Some? There is only one (out of 31) listed at http://mc-stan.org/about/team/ http://mc-stan.org/about/team/
- boltzmannbrain 8y ago
  Do you know of any details on how/why probabilistic programming is used over traditional methods? And why Stan? My assumption is b/c it's a legacy framework.
  - currymj 8y ago
    It's definitely not a legacy framework, it's very actively developed and improved. A lot of very useful statistical models can't benefit from the GPU, and for them I think Stan is the better tool. There's a reason it's basically the default choice for people who want to use probabilistic programming for Bayesian statistics. It's probably not the best tool for AI/ML type models. But for statisticians who want to use Bayesian methods it's close to perfect.
    - boltzmannbrain 8y ago
      Thanks that's good to know. Haha I knew "legacy" would ruffle some feathers, by which I mean Stan was pretty much the first application-ready PPS on the block -- robust toolbox of methods, actively developed/supported. The last slide of this presentation on SMC inference in PPLs is a nice view of the PPS landscape (not to mention the whole deck is a great intro by Lawrence Murray): http://www.it.uu.se/research/systems_and_control/education/2017/smc/schedule/lecture17.pdf http://www.it.uu.se/research/systems_and_control/education/2...
      - currymj 8y ago
        Yeah, I see what you're getting at now. And that is an excellent diagram. I've never actually used BUGS or JAGS for anything but I would consider at least BUGS to truly be legacy software. To me the word "legacy" means you shouldn't pick it for a new project.
    - xitrium 8y ago
      GPU and MPI support in Stan coming hopefully this summer!

marmaduke 8y ago

Generable is a Stan based startup which employs some of the core Stan devs http://www.generable.com http://www.generable.com

kgwgk 8y ago
Some? There is only one (out of 31) listed at http://mc-stan.org/about/team/ http://mc-stan.org/about/team/
boltzmannbrain 8y ago
Do you know of any details on how/why probabilistic programming is used over traditional methods? And why Stan? My assumption is b/c it's a legacy framework.
- currymj 8y ago
  It's definitely not a legacy framework, it's very actively developed and improved. A lot of very useful statistical models can't benefit from the GPU, and for them I think Stan is the better tool. There's a reason it's basically the default choice for people who want to use probabilistic programming for Bayesian statistics. It's probably not the best tool for AI/ML type models. But for statisticians who want to use Bayesian methods it's close to perfect.
  - boltzmannbrain 8y ago
    Thanks that's good to know. Haha I knew "legacy" would ruffle some feathers, by which I mean Stan was pretty much the first application-ready PPS on the block -- robust toolbox of methods, actively developed/supported. The last slide of this presentation on SMC inference in PPLs is a nice view of the PPS landscape (not to mention the whole deck is a great intro by Lawrence Murray): http://www.it.uu.se/research/systems_and_control/education/2017/smc/schedule/lecture17.pdf http://www.it.uu.se/research/systems_and_control/education/2...
    - currymj 8y ago
      Yeah, I see what you're getting at now. And that is an excellent diagram. I've never actually used BUGS or JAGS for anything but I would consider at least BUGS to truly be legacy software. To me the word "legacy" means you shouldn't pick it for a new project.
  - xitrium 8y ago
    GPU and MPI support in Stan coming hopefully this summer!