What this publication is all about.

As one might guess, this publication will be all about AI. Past that, there are some additional things that people should know.

NO ML Libraries

In languages like Python there are, in fact, many AI and ML libraries that have already been written to perform computations on data and thus make intelligent decisions … The programs that will be designed for this publication will NOT be using these libraries.

My reason is that too many important details are encapsulated from the programmer and the programmer can therefore remain ignorant about the exact algorithms and heuristics that these libraries employ. To break from Computer Science for the moment, one could imagine a hypothetical scenario where two artists are pitted against each other.

1. The first artist doesn’t have a great deal of talent (or even passion) for art but has access to a wide variety of tools including rulers, brushes, different types of paint, etc.
2. The second artist is only given half of the tools that the first artist is given but is significantly more talented and has a genuine passion for art.

It seems somewhat probable that despite the second artist having less tools to work with, he or she would likely do better because they might understand subtle details better and have a comprehensive understanding of what makes good art. Likewise, it’s my opinion that a good programmer needs to have a comprehensive understanding of how different algorithms work and when they’re appropriate. And thus, any libraries that I shall use will be strictly to assist with basic mathematical computations.

Why Python?

Most of the programs for this publication will be written in the language of Python. The reason is simply that Python programming is a great deal more dynamic than coding in other programming languages. And thus, projects that might require hundreds (or even thousands) of lines of code and weeks to design can be designed in a fraction of the time and lines of code.

What Someone Will Need

For an individual to participate in any of the projects in this blog, they will likely need to know:

• How to declare different variables of different types.
• How to write different functions to be called throughout the lifespan of the program.
• An understanding of scope and when certain variables are in scope or not.
• A basic understanding of addresses and when the values of different variables could be modified by direct addressing and when they can’t.
• An understanding of Object-Oriented Programming.
• And, a basic level understanding of the Python Programming Language.

Something extra that might present itself as useful will be an understanding of Parallel Programming. This is because some of the computations might be performed on a massive amount of data and the ability to split up the load can be a valuable skill to have.