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NoSleep19 OP t1_j7k28fp wrote

Reply to comment by bitemenow999 in [D] Should I focus on python or C++? by NoSleep19

But but what about programming language :( no seriously I bought an o’reilly subscription, and I want to read books on a specific topic in programming while i m in train, bus , before bed, I can’t do maths all time! I searching more of a strategy which programming language will benefit me first, should I become advanced at one before I move to next or juggle both?

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FHIR_HL7_Integrator t1_j7o1n9r wrote

I started with pascal, basic, and to a lesser extent asm when I was child in the 80. Asm was really helpful to understand at a low level how a computer actually works. Then I started learning c++ as a teen. Now it doesn't take long at all to pick up a new language. I agree with other posters to focus on the math. But learning c++ and then python would be my suggestion. That being said, you will be forced to use python while taking your class and doing self study. Might as well just learn both.

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NoSleep19 OP t1_j7p57ga wrote

just one question, how much python do I need to know to be considered good? does that mean every popular feature + design patterns? vice versa in C++?

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FHIR_HL7_Integrator t1_j7pcenv wrote

I wouldn't worry so much about how much you need to know to be good. Sometimes you need to know something enough to get a job done which is how I think of Python. Reality is python is a general purpose language, it's useful in about a million different ways and it's really not a difficult language. Everyone should have python in their toolbox. So just start using python. Use it for fun little projects that aren't necessarily school work. C++ is probably going to be the more difficult of the two. C++ is what you'll want to do when you are writing anything that needs to be really fast.

I'd take the classes in C++ and teach myself python through fun projects

Someone who is a skilled with C++ is an asset and often a useful and desirable part of a research or implementation team.

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bitemenow999 t1_j7lqudl wrote

If you want to be an ML scientist and build actual models then you just need a lot of math and just enough programming skills for prototyping, go with any language and if you can code what you want then that is great. One thing to note is I have in my experience seen people only with a grad education and research experience in this field and some of them don't code they just write down algos and let developers implement that, so you might want to consider that.

If you want to be MLOps or data engineer that doesn't require much math or an advance degree, then start with books specific for those fields since these roles have slightly different stack.

One rule of thumb, if you are just dipping your toes in, is to start with a language that has great and free resources available, for ML (learning and prototyping) that happens to be python, but you need C++ if you actually want to deploy your model for a decent size industrial project.

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dataslacker t1_j7m1dho wrote

I’ve been working in ML for 8 years and I’ve never seen or heard of a scientist being hired without at least one coding interview. Never seen someone just “write down an algorithm” and hand it off to an engineer. I would really like to hear where you saw this because it’s no where near my experience at big tech companies.

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bitemenow999 t1_j7m7ctl wrote

my boss during my internship at FB (now meta) came from academia and was a professor at one of the well-known uni, literally didn't write a single line of code during my 3 months there, all I/we (most of the team) got were scribbled notes written during our weekly meetings on what to implement...

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dataslacker t1_j7mf8yg wrote

Interesting! I guess if you’re a well know academic you can get away with that, but the rest of us need to know how to code

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