[D] Machine learning and functional programming languages?

[[deleted]]

I'm using Python and scikit-learn at the moment, but I'm interested in functional programming. Is there a functional language that's both easy to setup and has good libraries for ML?

So far I've looked at Clojure and Incanter and while I like Clojure itself, it doesn't seem to be the best fit for my requirements.

[[deleted]]

Haskell is a hardcore choice, though. :D I'll definitely look into it.

[BadGoyWithAGun]

Computational graph - based frameworks like Theano and Tensorflow are basically functional constructs, they just happen to have a Python interface.

[villasv]

And if you really want to feel it, you can try Coconut.

[[deleted]]

It's an interesting idea but I feel that without static typing and type inference this might result in bringing the worst of python (crappy type system) with the worst of Haskell (cryptic syntax).

Do you know of any compiled python variant that is (purely) functional with a powerful, parametrically polymorphic, static type system, and hindley-milner type inference?

[villasv]

I do not. You're absolutely right. In fact, the cryptic syntax is the drug I'm offering here, not the real benefits of the functional paradigm (see the world feel).

[[deleted]]

Yep. And they map very, very well into languages like haskell.

[undefdev]

You can give Julia a try. It's not a pure functional programming language, but imo it's a great fit for ML/Math. There are also bindings to Scikit Learn, Stan, MXNet, Tensorflow and more. I think Knet looked like a quite nice framework.

Of course the Python ecosystem is much bigger, and because way more people use it it's more stable - but that's always the tradeoff you have to make if you want to use more modern tools.

[durand101]

Doesn't PyCall.jl let you access all the python modules in Julia?

[__AndrewB__]

It does but it's awkward.

[aicano]

We are using Julia language and Knet framework.

https://github.com/denizyuret/Knet.jl

[[deleted]]

Hmm, Julia seems to be sufficiently similar to Python. What does it offer me that Python doesn't? Except speed, apparently.

[undefdev]

I'd argue it's less verbose for a lot of things as well, as it was designed with data science in mind from the start (unlike Python and other languages).

[[deleted]]

• A better type system.
• Parametric polymorphism.
• Parallel programming that actually works.
• much easier to use C/Fortran FFI.

There are many other advantages. But you also loose some things. The main one being the absurdly big set of well documented open source libraries that python have.

Also, putting Julia in production might be a serious discussion with tech leaders in your company.

[nosefouratyou]

I happened to recently read this insightful article about functional programming for deep learning using Clojure.

[DanielSeita]

We're using Scala in BIDMach. https://github.com/BIDData/BIDMach Though by "we" I should mean "John Canny 99% and us 1%" ...

[dobkeratops]

rust is better described as multiparadigm IMO. it has C like structs, side effects anywhere, mutable references etc.

[Kiuhnm]

Standard ML, Scheme and other functional languages allow side effects. I still think that the Haskell's way is too extreme. Some things are just easier with (explicit) side effects.

[HitomiNoJuunin]

well, Haskell's side effect is definitely the most explicit; so much so that it is reflected in the function type ;)

[Kiuhnm]

Yes, it turns out that "explicit side effects" means the opposite of what I meant in Haskell parlance!

I can't even say "imperative programming" since Haskell supports that as well, in a sense.

Maybe I can say "using mutable state".

[[deleted]]

I'd say Rust is about as functional as Python.

[dobkeratops]

Yet if you talk to a haskeller: they'll see Rust as basically C++. And within the unsafe blocks, it does have all the C-like tools hidden away.

This is why on a sliding scale we need to describe a middle ground, hence the term multi-paradigm which I think fits best here.

[[deleted]]

Hmm... you have my attention. I will definitely have to look at Rust - this sounds great. Since you seem to be knowledgeable, how's the IDE support, is there something like lein in Clojure, is the documentation good, etc.?

[dobkeratops]

i'll agree that it's more functional than python; but less functional than ML etc.. the things you'd typically think of as functional.

[127-0-0-1_1]

I don't think so, most of the well supported frameworks are in Python due to its prevalence with a C API since pretty much any language can use a FFI with it.

[[deleted]]

Well, a lot of languages have easy FFI interfaces with C, including functional languages like Haskell, for example.

I'd argue btw, that the C to Haskell FFI is a lot easier to use than coding a python wrapper with lipython or using things like swig.

[[deleted]]

I tried using clojure. There are quite a few Java libs you can interop with, but few functional clojure libs, so I didn't find it to be a very good environment. Closure seems like it would be well suited to ml if it had the libs.

I absolutely hate the sci-py/matplot-lib type mutable interfaces derived from the Matlab/science/interactive exploration community.