Machine Learning Projects for .NET Developers

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xix

   PDF

2. 256 Shades of Gray

   • Mathias Brandewinder

   Pages 1-32

3. Spam or Ham?

   • Mathias Brandewinder

   Pages 33-66

4. The Joy of Type Providers

   • Mathias Brandewinder

   Pages 67-92

5. Of Bikes and Men

   • Mathias Brandewinder

   Pages 93-129

6. You Are Not a Unique Snowflake

   • Mathias Brandewinder

   Pages 131-178

7. Trees and Forests

   • Mathias Brandewinder

   Pages 179-210

8. A Strange Game

   • Mathias Brandewinder

   Pages 211-238

9. Digits, Revisited

   • Mathias Brandewinder

   Pages 239-265

10. Conclusion

    • Mathias Brandewinder

    Pages 267-270

11. Back Matter

    Pages 271-275

    PDF

Machine Learning Projects for .NET Developers shows you how to build smarter .NET applications that learn from data, using simple algorithms and techniques that can be applied to a wide range of real-world problems. You’ll code each project in the familiar setting of Visual Studio, while the machine learning logic uses F#, a language ideally suited to machine learning applications in .NET. If you’re new to F#, this book will give you everything you need to get started. If you’re already familiar with F#, this is your chance to put the language into action in an exciting new context.

In a series of fascinating projects, you’ll learn how to:

• Build an optical character recognition (OCR) system from scratch
• Code a spam filter that learns by example
• Use F#’s powerful type providers to interface with external resources (in this case, data analysis tools from the R programming language)
• Transform your data into informative features, and use them to make accurate predictions
• Find patterns in data when you don’t know what you’re looking for
• Predict numerical values using regression models
• Implement an intelligent game that learns how to play from experience

Along the way, you’ll learn fundamental ideas that can be applied in all kinds of real-world contexts and industries, from advertising to finance, medicine, and scientific research. While some machine learning algorithms use fairly advanced mathematics, this book focuses on simple but effective approaches. If you enjoy hacking code and data, this book is for you.

Mathias Brandewinder is a Microsoft MVP for F# based in San Francisco, California. An unashamed math geek, he became interested early on in building models to help others make better decisions using data. He collected graduate degrees in Business, Economics and Operations Research, and fell in love with programming shortly after arriving in the Silicon Valley. He has been developing software professionally since the early days of .NET, developing business applications for a variety of industries, with a focus on predictive models and risk analysis.

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