

Guide to getting started in Machine Learning - ananthrk
http://abeautifulwww.com/2009/10/11/guide-to-getting-started-in-machine-learning/

======
simon_
Andrew Ng's course notes are 90% of the way to being a textbook, and are an
incredible resource, especially if you're going to watch the lectures.

<http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs229/materials.html>

~~~
ovi256
I also recommend Andrew Moore's tutorials on Datamining, which is quite
related to ML. Found them on HN a few days ago, printed the slides and started
reading them. So now I'm just passing it on :)

------
paraschopra
God, whatever you do please don't start by picking a few datasets at UCI ML
site and using R packages to play with the data.

An ideal approach will be to:

\- Pick any programming language and start off with plain regression. It may
look simple but this will become fantastic base going forward

\- Generate a synthetic data set and apply your freshly written regression on
it

\- Expand your toolkit to include test and training data set generation and
calculation of ROC curves and confusion tables

\- Add logistic regression, regularizers and other advanced regression models
to the toolkit

\- Use a real world dataset and develop multiple different models. And pick
the best model (choosing the right model itself is a big task in itself)

\- Then try coding Neural Networks, SVM, etc.

~~~
chromophore
Agree with you Paras!

Shubhendu here by the way! :)

I was taken aback a little by the suggestion to use the UCI repository with R
for beginning ML.

I would agree with your approach, I learnt all my basics from Andrew Ng's
course and his course more or less follows what you said. :)

~~~
chromophore
And I prefer the book by Bishop, It strikes a fine balance between the maths
and the ideas.

------
the_real_r2d2
I would add:

Programming Collective Intelligence (O'reilly)
<http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529321>

[http://ianma.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/machine-learning-
for-b...](http://ianma.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/machine-learning-for-
beginners/)

Practical Artificial Intelligence Programming in Java
<http://www.markwatson.com/opencontent/>

~~~
bad_user
"Programming Collective Intelligence" is very short on theory. It's good for
getting your feet wet and for getting over your fear of something new and
difficult, but otherwise without proper comprehension of the phenomenons
involved in those algorithms, you're not going to get very far.

~~~
the_real_r2d2
Yes, it is short and basic in theory, but I it is very practical. In my case I
learn best trying and applying concepts in practice. That is why I found the
book very useful. Also I accompanied my learning with some other books (i.e.
Machine Learning from Tom Mitchell) and academic papers that filled the theory
gap. As a started point to teach the basics of ML and to encourage to go and
learn more, I think PCI is very good.

------
wheaties
Nice to see a link to online courses. I've been studying Bishop's book in my
spare time.

------
leecho0
I'm curious what you guys use ML for

~~~
paraschopra
MATLAB

~~~
leecho0
I was wondering more about like regression of customer data, creating
recommendation engines, or something along those lines.

