4 ms·

PyML: machine learning in Python

63 points by rogercosseboom 18y ago

apu 18y ago
Has anyone used this? Care to share your experience?
kaiser 18y ago
I am currently playing around with it. Decent support vector machine implementation. However, I have some problems with it. It is by far not as hugh as weka http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/ http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/ It is in python (big plus) and seems to be easily hacked for online classification. I like https://mlpy.fbk.eu/ https://mlpy.fbk.eu/ a bit better, as it has also a decent integrated Nearest Neighbor (ok, ok this one is not hard to implement on your own) and FDA + DWT (awsome).
- tectonic 18y ago
  Weka can be used with JRuby, or Jython (I assume).
- lliiffee 18y ago
  Hey, what do FDA and DWT stand for? (Sorry, that link doesn't work for me.) Thanks!
  - mcxx 18y ago
    Google, being a good friend of mine, didn't mind me asking. His answer: Fisher Discriminant Analysis (FDA), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). I'll introduce you: http://google.com http://google.com
    - lliiffee 18y ago
      I did search for DWT. I don't understand how wavelets would be used in this context, so I was hoping for some verification.
jacquesm 18y ago
One serious problem of HN is that the amount of good stuff on here greatly exceeds my capacity for absorbing it all... Roughly one week goes by and I have at least another months worth of reading added to my list.
thomaspaine 18y ago
PySVM might have been a better name, since it looks like it only does SVM and kernel methods. I haven't used this package, but I'll recommend libsvm and liblinear because they're fast and have wrappers for just about every language you want, including Java, Ruby, Matlab, and Python http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/libsvm/#python http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/libsvm/#python If you're doing large scale linear classification, liblinear is especially awesome and fast. http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/liblinear/ http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/liblinear/ EDIT: From the PyML documentation: "By default the libsvm solver is used in training. To use the PyML SMO optimizer either set the optimizer attribute to ’mysmo’ or instantiate an svm instance as svm.SVM(optimizer = ’mysmo’). Note that for a non-vector dataset, the default libsvm optimizer cannot be used and the PyML native SMO implementation is automatically used instead (it is slower than libsvm so is not the default)"
- kaiser 18y ago
  Yes, great lib (totally forget about the python bindings). I was using it under matlab works like a charm
mjtokelly 18y ago
http://www.ailab.si/orange/ http://www.ailab.si/orange/ This is the most thorough Python machine learning package I know of. Includes SVM. Lots of tutorials, too, and a visual development environment (if that's your style).
- metaguri 18y ago
  Wow, sounds impressive, but that link isn't working for me unfortunately! Do you know of a mirror?
  - mjtokelly 18y ago
    Blast, it was fine just two hours ago. http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:iqMjX8uGgroJ:www.ailab.si/orange/+python+orange&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:iqMjX8uGgroJ:www.ailab.s... Google cache, to whet your appetite...
  - mjtokelly 18y ago
    Link working now, FYI.
- paraschopra 18y ago
  But Orange library is not actively developed/maintained. Right?
  - toplakm 18y ago
    Well, it is academic software. I work at ailab.si and a lot of my work concerns Orange, especially its bioinformatics addon. Its development is slow because we also need to do some other things, like research. New features are usually added when we need them. It is actively maintained/developed but by only few developers, so its progress can seem slow at times.
mcroydon 18y ago
If only there were some good non-GPL machine learning libraries for Python...
- pskomoroch 18y ago
  There is a start at it here: http://www.scipy.org/scipy/scikits/wiki/MachineLearning http://www.scipy.org/scipy/scikits/wiki/MachineLearning Still some active development, but needs more people: http://projects.scipy.org/scipy/scikits/browser/trunk/learn/scikits/learn http://projects.scipy.org/scipy/scikits/browser/trunk/learn/...

apu 18y ago

Has anyone used this? Care to share your experience?

I am currently playing around with it. Decent support vector machine implementation. However, I have some problems with it. It is by far not as hugh as weka http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/ http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/ It is in python (big plus) and seems to be easily hacked for online classification. I like https://mlpy.fbk.eu/ https://mlpy.fbk.eu/ a bit better, as it has also a decent integrated Nearest Neighbor (ok, ok this one is not hard to implement on your own) and FDA + DWT (awsome).

tectonic 18y ago
Weka can be used with JRuby, or Jython (I assume).
lliiffee 18y ago
Hey, what do FDA and DWT stand for? (Sorry, that link doesn't work for me.) Thanks!
- mcxx 18y ago
  Google, being a good friend of mine, didn't mind me asking. His answer: Fisher Discriminant Analysis (FDA), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). I'll introduce you: http://google.com http://google.com
  - lliiffee 18y ago
    I did search for DWT. I don't understand how wavelets would be used in this context, so I was hoping for some verification.

jacquesm 18y ago

One serious problem of HN is that the amount of good stuff on here greatly exceeds my capacity for absorbing it all... Roughly one week goes by and I have at least another months worth of reading added to my list.

thomaspaine 18y ago

PySVM might have been a better name, since it looks like it only does SVM and kernel methods. I haven't used this package, but I'll recommend libsvm and liblinear because they're fast and have wrappers for just about every language you want, including Java, Ruby, Matlab, and Python http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/libsvm/#python http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/libsvm/#python If you're doing large scale linear classification, liblinear is especially awesome and fast. http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/liblinear/ http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~cjlin/liblinear/ EDIT: From the PyML documentation: "By default the libsvm solver is used in training. To use the PyML SMO optimizer either set the optimizer attribute to ’mysmo’ or instantiate an svm instance as svm.SVM(optimizer = ’mysmo’). Note that for a non-vector dataset, the default libsvm optimizer cannot be used and the PyML native SMO implementation is automatically used instead (it is slower than libsvm so is not the default)"

kaiser 18y ago
Yes, great lib (totally forget about the python bindings). I was using it under matlab works like a charm

mjtokelly 18y ago

http://www.ailab.si/orange/ http://www.ailab.si/orange/ This is the most thorough Python machine learning package I know of. Includes SVM. Lots of tutorials, too, and a visual development environment (if that's your style).

metaguri 18y ago
Wow, sounds impressive, but that link isn't working for me unfortunately! Do you know of a mirror?
- mjtokelly 18y ago
  Blast, it was fine just two hours ago. http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:iqMjX8uGgroJ:www.ailab.si/orange/+python+orange&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:iqMjX8uGgroJ:www.ailab.s... Google cache, to whet your appetite...
- mjtokelly 18y ago
  Link working now, FYI.
paraschopra 18y ago
But Orange library is not actively developed/maintained. Right?
- toplakm 18y ago
  Well, it is academic software. I work at ailab.si and a lot of my work concerns Orange, especially its bioinformatics addon. Its development is slow because we also need to do some other things, like research. New features are usually added when we need them. It is actively maintained/developed but by only few developers, so its progress can seem slow at times.

mcroydon 18y ago

If only there were some good non-GPL machine learning libraries for Python...

pskomoroch 18y ago
There is a start at it here: http://www.scipy.org/scipy/scikits/wiki/MachineLearning http://www.scipy.org/scipy/scikits/wiki/MachineLearning Still some active development, but needs more people: http://projects.scipy.org/scipy/scikits/browser/trunk/learn/scikits/learn http://projects.scipy.org/scipy/scikits/browser/trunk/learn/...