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Python: The difference between knowing and understanding it
Do you know what the resizing factor for lists is in Python?
I’m only kidding. You don’t need to know Python’s list resizing factor to understand it well. But if you’d like to find out more, read here!
Coming from a non-computer science (CS) and non-technical background, I suffered from the lack of CS fundamentals when I first started my journey and career in Machine Learning (ML). This included things like understanding asymptotic runtime, memory usage, data structures, algorithms and much more. What made matters worse was that I jumped straight into ML without engineering fundamentals — I didn’t even know what the self in a class meant (in the Python context). I was clueless.
Fortunately enough, with just sufficient ML concepts but poor engineering know-hows, I gained a foothold into ML and started my journey learning and practicing ML. Along this journey, I quickly realised that engineering played a large part in ML engineering. However, there is in fact a stark difference between knowing how to simply use a programming language versus understanding it well.
Here are some things you should know before you can say you truly understand Python. This article is broken down into several sections:
