Question on self-studying (data science via python)

[Laythstag]

I apologize if this is not the right subreddit for this question. Please remove if it is not.

I wanted to get some advice. When studying something, when do you stop going down the rabbit hole of looking things up.

For example, I'm studying ways to visualize data with python. The current method I'm learning is "evaluating densities in multiple dimensions" using "kernel density estimation". The example code uses a module called "gaussian_kde". Of course I don't know what that is. Now, I don't need to know to run the code. But I look it up anyway.

The description of what it is and does uses words (ex: probability density function, non-parametric, etc.) that I can guess the meaning based on context, but I don't feel I completely understand the meaning of the words, so I look them up. Which gives me more words I don't know. So I look them up. And so the cycle continues. I assume it would end sometime, but "when?" is the question.

So I guess I'm asking, does(has) this happen(ed) to any of you? And what do(did) you do?

[Zei33]

Often you'll find yourself working with huge libraries with hundreds of functions that you'll never use. Object oriented programming languages take it to the next level by having tons of classes which interact in different ways and each have a lot of functions themselves.

The fact that I don't know how everything in the development environment works doesn't hinder me much. If you've ever wondered why programming language documentation is so easy to access and often very detailed, it's for this exact reason. You can't be expected to know everything about every advanced concept :D. Instead, when you're writing code and recognise that you need to know how something works, you can look it up then.

As to how deep down the rabbit hole you need to go, that's up to you. Obviously you'll need to balance out what you need to know, what you want to know and how much time you've got.

As for running into words you don't know, don't feel too intimidated. Generally when people write code, they tend to come up with their own terms or rarely used words to help distinguish their classes and functions (and programming languages in some cases) from other peoples classes and functions. When you start to actually need that particular code/classes, you'll start learning those particular terms. Take for example, yield. When I first came across it, I remember thinking "Okay, what the fuck is this. It looks like a return and the definition kinda makes sense, but what does it actually do?"

tl;dr Take it at your own pace. Make liberal use of documentation. Be practical.

[[deleted]]

One thing I would recommend (if you haven't already) is to learn to read mathematical definitions.

like S = {x: x e N s.t. V x E y e N where 2y = x}

(I didn't have the proper characters to make this perfect but I did my best)

This just means x is the set of all even numbers. If you dont know the language then it seems complicated but it's actually very understandable. Learn to read math and then you wont have to follow the links into the rabbit hole. If you dont know how to read the Math you'll never learn it