When I first got started in machine learning I implemented algorithms by hand. It was really slow going.
I was a terrible programmer at the time. I was trying to figure out the algorithms from books, how to use them on problems and how to write code – all at the same time. This was the biggest mistake I made when getting started. It made everything 3-times harder and killed my motivation.
A friend of mine suggested I look at Weka. I resisted. I was a student and a C-programmer and I didn’t want to get into Java.
Later, I was looking into decision tree algorithms and I learned that Weka had an implementation of C4.5 (a really powerful method).
I downloaded Weka and discovered that in addition to the Java API, Weka had a fully interactive graphical interface for loading data, running algorithms and reviewing results. Basically, all of the things I was trying to figure out how to do and implement myself, but in a GUI.
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Weka Explorer Interface with the Iris dataset loaded
I was hooked. I started using it for class work and for my own experiments. Later in grad school, I started my own research by writing 3rd-party plugins for Weka (LVQ algorithm and others).
I now recommend it to programmers just getting started because it’s so quick to get meaningful results on a dataset. It also instills best practices like repeatable experiments and statistical methods for comparing results.
I agree. Sometimes we make things more difficult than necessary by our programmer’s pride. In the end, what really matters is how fast we get results and how good we are at using machine learning as a tool. More often than not, potential clients, employers or coworkers really don’t care about the programming language or library that we use, as long as we deliver!
But , Isn’t writing the code from scratch better ?
Better for what?
It really depends on your goals.
If you are a beginner want to get results, using a tool like Weka will get you there fastest.
I agree. Sometimes we make things more difficult than necessary by our programmer’s pride. In the end, what really matters is how fast we get results and how good we are at using machine learning as a tool. More often than not, potential clients, employers or coworkers really don’t care about the programming language or library that we use, as long as we deliver!
Yep. Results over almost everything else.
Thank u sir, your is very understandable and excited I really support you about this. wish u all the best.
Thanks.
please by using weka can I do everything just like with Python or r……….thanks a lot
You can do a lot.
Hey Jason! If Weka is so powerful, in what cases would it be beneficial then to learn R or Python for data analysis / ML tasks?
Hi Nigel…That is a great question! The following resource may be of interest:
https://www.erp-information.com/weka