> For anyone who is not a Python beginner, but is an ML beginner, the shorter version is much more approachable, as it puts the subject matter more front-and-center.
It certainly depends on the audience. Interestingly, I had the opposite conclusion about Python beginners in my head before reaching this line!
I think it's more about the learner's prior background. Lately, I've mostly been helping friends who do a lot of scientific computing get started in ML. For that audience, the "nested loops" presentation is typically much easier to grok.
> (Imagine that every matrix multiplication would be written using explicit loops, instead of one "multiply" operation. Would it clarify linear algebra for you, or the other way around?)
Obviously "every" would be terrible. But there's a real question here if we flip "every" to "first". For a work-a-day mathematician who doesn't write code often, certainly not! For a work-a-day programmer who didn't take or doesn't remember linear algebra, the loopy version is probably worth showing once before moving on.
On a related note: I sometimes find folds easier to understand than loops. Other times find loops easier to understand than folds. I'm not particularly sure why. Probably having both versions stashed away and either exercising judgement based on the learner at hand -- or just showing both -- is the best option.
It certainly depends on the audience. Interestingly, I had the opposite conclusion about Python beginners in my head before reaching this line!
I think it's more about the learner's prior background. Lately, I've mostly been helping friends who do a lot of scientific computing get started in ML. For that audience, the "nested loops" presentation is typically much easier to grok.
> (Imagine that every matrix multiplication would be written using explicit loops, instead of one "multiply" operation. Would it clarify linear algebra for you, or the other way around?)
Obviously "every" would be terrible. But there's a real question here if we flip "every" to "first". For a work-a-day mathematician who doesn't write code often, certainly not! For a work-a-day programmer who didn't take or doesn't remember linear algebra, the loopy version is probably worth showing once before moving on.
On a related note: I sometimes find folds easier to understand than loops. Other times find loops easier to understand than folds. I'm not particularly sure why. Probably having both versions stashed away and either exercising judgement based on the learner at hand -- or just showing both -- is the best option.