Github user tillrohrmann commented on a diff in the pull request: https://github.com/apache/flink/pull/792#discussion_r32196879 --- Diff: docs/libs/ml/quickstart.md --- @@ -24,4 +25,214 @@ under the License. * This will be replaced by the TOC {:toc} -Coming soon. +## Introduction + +FlinkML is designed to make learning from your data a straight-forward process, abstracting away +the complexities that usually come with having to deal with big data learning tasks. In this +quick-start guide we will show just how easy it is to solve a simple supervised learning problem +using FlinkML. But first some basics, feel free to skip the next few lines if you're already +familiar with Machine Learning (ML). + +As defined by Murphy [1] ML deals with detecting patterns in data, and using those +learned patterns to make predictions about the future. We can categorize most ML algorithms into +two major categories: Supervised and Unsupervised Learning. + +* **Supervised Learning** deals with learning a function (mapping) from a set of inputs +(features) to a set of outputs. The learning is done using a *training set* of (input, +output) pairs that we use to approximate the mapping function. Supervised learning problems are +further divided into classification and regression problems. In classification problems we try to +predict the *class* that an example belongs to, for example whether a user is going to click on +an ad or not. Regression problems one the other hand, are about predicting (real) numerical +values, often called the dependent variable, for example what the temperature will be tomorrow. + +* **Unsupervised Learning** deals with discovering patterns and regularities in the data. An example +of this would be *clustering*, where we try to discover groupings of the data from the +descriptive features. Unsupervised learning can also be used for feature selection, for example +through [principal components analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_component_analysis). + +## Linking with FlinkML + +In order to use FlinkML in you project, first you have to --- End diff -- your
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