What Is Machine Learning
Learning from examples instead of rules, the main kinds of ML, and the train, validate, test habit that keeps you honest.
Rules versus learning
Traditional programming: you write the rules, the program applies them to data and gives answers.
Machine learning (ML): you give examples (data plus the answers), and an algorithm finds the rules. The result is a model, a function you can apply to new data.
ML helps when the rules are too many or too fuzzy to write by hand, such as recognising spam or predicting a price. It is a poor choice when a few clear rules work; a plain if statement is cheaper and easier to explain.
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