Mercurial > pylearn
annotate doc/v2_planning.txt @ 945:cafa16bfc7df
additions to v2_planning
| author | James Bergstra <bergstrj@iro.umontreal.ca> |
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| date | Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:35:57 -0400 |
| parents | 939806d33183 |
| children | 7c4504a4ce1a |
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| 2 Motivation | |
| 3 ========== | |
| 4 | |
| 5 Yoshua: | |
| 6 ------- | |
| 7 | |
| 8 We are missing a *Theano Machine Learning library*. | |
| 9 | |
| 10 The deep learning tutorials do a good job but they lack the following features, which I would like to see in a ML library: | |
| 11 | |
| 12 - a well-organized collection of Theano symbolic expressions (formulas) for handling most of | |
| 13 what is needed either in implementing existing well-known ML and deep learning algorithms or | |
| 14 for creating new variants (without having to start from scratch each time), that is the | |
| 15 mathematical core, | |
| 16 | |
| 17 - a well-organized collection of python modules to help with the following: | |
| 18 - several data-access models that wrap around learning algorithms for interfacing with various types of data (static vectors, images, sound, video, generic time-series, etc.) | |
| 19 - generic utility code for optimization | |
| 20 - stochastic gradient descent variants | |
| 21 - early stopping variants | |
| 22 - interfacing to generic 2nd order optimization methods | |
| 23 - 2nd order methods tailored to work on minibatches | |
| 24 - optimizers for sparse coefficients / parameters | |
| 25 - generic code for model selection and hyper-parameter optimization (including the use and coordination of multiple jobs running on different machines, e.g. using jobman) | |
| 26 - generic code for performance estimation and experimental statistics | |
| 27 - visualization tools (using existing python libraries) and examples for all of the above | |
| 28 - learning algorithm conventions and meta-learning algorithms (bagging, boosting, mixtures of experts, etc.) which use them | |
| 29 | |
| 30 [Note that many of us already use some instance of all the above, but each one tends to reinvent the wheel and newbies don't benefit from a knowledge base.] | |
| 31 | |
| 32 - a well-documented set of python scripts using the above library to show how to run the most | |
| 33 common ML algorithms (possibly with examples showing how to run multiple experiments with | |
| 34 many different models and collect statistical comparative results). This is particularly | |
| 35 important for pure users to adopt Theano in the ML application work. | |
| 36 | |
| 37 Ideally, there would be one person in charge of this project, making sure a coherent and | |
| 38 easy-to-read design is developed, along with many helping hands (to implement the various | |
| 39 helper modules, formulae, and learning algorithms). | |
| 40 | |
| 41 | |
| 42 James: | |
| 43 ------- | |
| 44 | |
| 45 I am interested in the design and implementation of the "well-organized collection of Theano | |
| 46 symbolic expressions..." | |
| 47 | |
| 48 I would like to explore algorithms for hyper-parameter optimization, following up on some | |
| 49 "high-throughput" work. I'm most interested in the "generic code for model selection and | |
| 50 hyper-parameter optimization..." and "generic code for performance estimation...". | |
| 51 | |
| 52 I have some experiences with the data-access requirements, and some lessons I'd like to share | |
| 53 on that, but no time to work on that aspect of things. | |
| 54 | |
| 55 I will continue to contribute to the "well-documented set of python scripts using the above to | |
| 56 showcase common ML algorithms...". I have an Olshausen&Field-style sparse coding script that | |
| 57 could be polished up. I am also implementing the mcRBM and I'll be able to add that when it's | |
| 58 done. | |
| 59 | |
| 60 | |
| 61 | |
| 62 Suggestions for how to tackle various desiderata | |
| 63 ================================================ | |
| 64 | |
| 65 | |
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66 Theano Symbolic Expressions for ML |
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67 ---------------------------------- |
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68 |
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69 We could make this a submodule of pylearn: ``pylearn.nnet``. |
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70 |
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71 There are a number of ideas floating around for how to handle classes / |
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72 modules (LeDeepNet, pylearn.shared.layers, pynnet) so lets implement as much |
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73 math as possible in global functions with no classes. There are no models in |
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74 the wish list that require than a few vectors and matrices to parametrize. |
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75 Global functions are more reusable than classes. |
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76 |
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77 |
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78 Data access |
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79 ----------- |
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80 |
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81 A general interface to datasets from the perspective of an experiment driver |
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82 (e.g. kfold) is to see them as a function that maps index (typically integer) |
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83 to example (whose type and nature depends on the dataset, it could for |
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84 instance be an (image, label) pair). This interface permits iterating over |
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85 the dataset, shuffling the dataset, and splitting it into folds. For |
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86 efficiency, it is nice if the dataset interface supports looking up several |
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87 index values at once, because looking up many examples at once can sometimes |
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88 be faster than looking each one up in turn. |
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89 |
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90 Some datasets may not support random access (e.g. a random number stream) and |
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91 that's fine if an exception is raised. The user will see a NotImplementedError |
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92 or similar, and try something else. |
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93 |
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94 |
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95 A more intuitive interface for many datasets (or subsets) is to load them as |
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96 matrices or lists of examples. This format is more convenient to work with at |
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97 an ipython shell, for example. It is not good to provide only the "dataset |
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98 as a function" view of a dataset. Even if a dataset is very large, it is nice |
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99 to have a standard way to get some representative examples in a convenient |
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100 structure, to be able to play with them in ipython. |
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101 |
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102 |
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103 Another thing to consider related to datasets is that there are a number of |
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104 other efforts to have standard ML datasets, and we should be aware of them, |
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105 and compatible with them when it's easy: |
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106 - mldata.org (they have a file format, not sure how many use it) |
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107 - weka (ARFF file format) |
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108 - scikits.learn |
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109 - hdf5 / pytables |
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110 |
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111 |
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112 pylearn.datasets uses a DATA_ROOT environment variable to locate a filesystem |
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113 folder that is assumed to have a standard form across different installations. |
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114 That's where the data files are. The correct format of this folder is currently |
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115 defined implicitly by the contents of /data/lisa/data at DIRO, but it would be |
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116 better to document in pylearn what the contents of this folder should be as |
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117 much as possible. It should be possible to rebuild this tree from information |
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118 found in pylearn. |
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119 |
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120 |
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121 |
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122 Model Selection & Hyper-Parameter Optimization |
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123 ---------------------------------------------- |
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124 |
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125 Driving a distributed computing job for a long time to optimize |
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126 hyper-parameters using one or more clusters is the goal here. |
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127 Although there might be some library-type code to write here, I think of this |
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128 more as an application template. The user would use python code to describe |
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129 the experiment to run and the hyper-parameter space to search. Then this |
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130 application-driver would take control of scheduling jobs and running them on |
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131 various computers... I'm imagining a potentially ugly brute of a hack that's |
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132 not necessarily something we will want to expose at a low-level for reuse. |
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133 |
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134 |
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135 Python scripts for common ML algorithms |
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136 --------------------------------------- |
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137 |
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138 The script aspect of this feature request makes me think that what would be |
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139 good here is more tutorial-type scripts. And the existing tutorials could |
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140 potentially be rewritten to use some of the pylearn.nnet expressions. More |
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141 tutorials / demos would be great. |
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142 |
| 941 | 143 |
| 144 Functional Specifications | |
| 145 ========================= | |
| 146 | |
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147 TODO: |
| 941 | 148 Put these into different text files so that this one does not become a monster. |
| 149 For each thing with a functional spec (e.g. datasets library, optimization library) make a | |
| 150 separate file. | |
| 151 | |
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152 |
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153 |
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154 pylearn.nnet |
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155 ------------ |
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156 |
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157 Submodule with functions for building layers, calculating classification |
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158 errors, cross-entropies with various distributions, free energies. This |
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159 module would include for the most part global functions, Theano Ops and Theano |
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160 optimizations. |
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161 |
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162 Indexing Convention |
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163 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
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164 |
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165 Something to decide on - Fortran-style or C-style indexing. Although we have |
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166 often used c-style indexing in the past (for efficiency in c!) this is no |
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167 longer an issue with numpy because the physical layout is independent of the |
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168 indexing order. The fact remains that Fortran-style indexing follows linear |
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169 algebra conventions, while c-style indexing does not. If a global function |
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170 includes a lot of math derivations, it would be *really* nice if the code used |
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parents:
941
diff
changeset
|
171 the same convention for the orientation of matrices, and endlessly annoying to |
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cafa16bfc7df
additions to v2_planning
James Bergstra <bergstrj@iro.umontreal.ca>
parents:
941
diff
changeset
|
172 have to be always transposing everything. |
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cafa16bfc7df
additions to v2_planning
James Bergstra <bergstrj@iro.umontreal.ca>
parents:
941
diff
changeset
|
173 |