To add to this comment, it's hard to make any useful program if you don't have at least a clear conceptual understanding of what you're trying to do.
For example, perhaps you are trying to calculate a variance. But do you have a set of raw data from which you will estimate the variance? Or some summary statistics? Or do you already have a probability distribution from which you will compute the variance? How is it represented? Is that the probability distribution over the particular variable you want the variance for, or is it a related variable that needs to be transformed first somehow?
You don't necessarily need to know how to handle all the math by hand, but there's no avoiding the need for at least a clear idea of what you're doing and what the sticking points might be.
> it's hard to make any useful program if you don't have at least a clear conceptual understanding of what you're trying to do.
Completely - I've run into the exact issues you were talking about. Trying to really understand ML without some foundation in stats doesn't work well.
I was wondering about code examples, not as a copy/paste solution ala Stack Overflow, but to use as a Rosetta stone to aid in learning. I've seen something similar for physics equations and chunks of the Quantum wave formula and they were pretty enlightening. "Oh, that's what that means..."
I can follow the logic of a chunk of C pretty well, especially with decent variable names, but I would probably need a long time to catch-up on all the math, from both a syntax and conceptual perspective without some sort of crutch.
For example, perhaps you are trying to calculate a variance. But do you have a set of raw data from which you will estimate the variance? Or some summary statistics? Or do you already have a probability distribution from which you will compute the variance? How is it represented? Is that the probability distribution over the particular variable you want the variance for, or is it a related variable that needs to be transformed first somehow?
You don't necessarily need to know how to handle all the math by hand, but there's no avoiding the need for at least a clear idea of what you're doing and what the sticking points might be.