Languages look similar, but Python value resides in the vast amount of libraries available to do data processing and ML. Most of them backed by C implementations under the hood.
There's nothing about Python, compared with Ruby, that gives it any advantage, numerics or otherwise. Ruby's C ffi is just as powerful as Python's. It's all just a first mover phenomenon. Python is the VHS of programming languages.
Exactly, and though Ruby has an FFI (Foreign Function Interface) similar libraries were not created and Ruby was pigeon holed as a language you build CRUD apps in.
And those libraries can actually be used from any language with FFI capabilities.
So whatever headstart Python might have in machine learning, it is only a matter of time until all major languages support the same C, C++ and Fortran libraries.
The only things holding it, are having anyone that cares enough to write those bindings, and the culture of which languages are accepted when submiting papers.
cutler|4 years ago
luibelgo|4 years ago
Grimm1|4 years ago
rmetzler|4 years ago
I don't do any ML and don't know much about it, but the Elixir / Phoenix people around José Valim now build ML software (nx, livebook) and I'm excited for this.
pjmlp|4 years ago
So whatever headstart Python might have in machine learning, it is only a matter of time until all major languages support the same C, C++ and Fortran libraries.
The only things holding it, are having anyone that cares enough to write those bindings, and the culture of which languages are accepted when submiting papers.