Python Tutorial - Introducing XGBoost

The Hottest Librarian: Uncovering the Magic of XGBoost

XGBoost is an incredibly popular machine learning library that has been gaining attention in the scientific community for its impressive performance and speed. Developed originally as a C++ command-line application, XGBoost was created after winning a popular machine learning competition. The package quickly gained adoption within the wider machine learning community, with bindings or functions that tapped into the core C++ code appearing in various other languages such as Python, Scala, and Julia.

One of the key factors contributing to XGBoost's popularity is its speed and performance. The core XGBoost algorithm is parallelizable, allowing it to harness all the processing power of modern multi-core computers. Furthermore, it can be parallelized on two GPUs and across networks of computers, making it feasible to train models on very large data sets with hundreds of millions of training examples. While speed is an important factor, it's not the only reason for XGBoost's popularity.

Ultimately, what makes XGBoost so popular is that it consistently outperforms all other single algorithm methods in machine learning competitions and has been shown to achieve state-of-the-art performance on various machine learning benchmark datasets. This has earned it a reputation as one of the top-performing machine learning libraries available today. In order to demonstrate its capabilities, let's take a look at an example of how we can use XGBoost using a classification problem.

We start by importing the necessary libraries and functions, including XGBoost and the Train-Test split function from Scikit-Learn. It's essential to build a machine learning model using trained test splits of your data, as this ensures that your model doesn't overfit and can generalize to unseen data. To achieve this, we load our data from a file and split it into a matrix of samples by features called X and a vector of target values called Y. We then create our Train-Test split, keeping twenty percent of the data for testing.

Next, we instantiate our XGBoost classifier instance with some parameters that we'll cover shortly. This is where things start to get familiar, as XGBoost has a Scikit-Learn compatible API and uses the fit-predict pattern that you should be accustomed to. We fit or train our algorithm on the training set, and then evaluate it by generating predictions using the test set and comparing our predictions to the actual target labels on the test set. Finally, we evaluate the accuracy of the trained model on the test set and print the results to screen.

Given XGBoost's popularity, let's get started with using it already. In order to take full advantage of XGBoost, it's essential to understand its parameters and how they can be tuned for optimal performance. This includes hyperparameter tuning, which is a crucial step in achieving the best possible results from your machine learning model.

In conclusion, XGBoost is an incredibly powerful machine learning library that has been gaining attention in the scientific community for its impressive performance and speed. With its parallelizable algorithm and Scikit-Learn compatible API, XGBoost makes it easy to build high-performing machine learning models on a wide range of data sets. Whether you're a seasoned machine learning practitioner or just starting out, XGBoost is definitely worth exploring further.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ennow let's talk about what you're actually here for the hottest librarian supervised machine learning XG boost XG boost is an incredibly popular machine learning library for good reason it was developed originally as a C++ command-line application after winning a popular machine learning competition the package started being adopted within the wider machine learning community as a result bindings or functions that tapped into the core C++ code started appearing in a variety of other languages including Python our scala Giulia and java we will cover the Python API in this course what makes XG boost so popular its speed and performance because the core XG boost algorithm is parallelizable it can harness all of the processing power of modern multi-core computers furthermore it is parallelizable on two GPUs and across networks of computers making it feasible to train models on very large data sets on the order of hundreds of millions of training examples however XG boost speed isn't the packages real draw ultimately a fast but poorly performing machine learning algorithm is not going to have wide adoption within the community what makes XG boosts so popular is that it consistently outperforms all other single algorithm methods in machine learning competitions and has been shown to achieve state-of-the-art performance on a variety of machine learning benchmark datasets here's an example of how we can use XG boost using a classification problem in lines 1 through 4 we import the libraries or functions we will be using including XG boost and the Train test split function from scikit-learn remember you always build a machine learning model using trained test splits of your data or some portion of your data is used for training and the remainder is held out for testing to ensure that your model doesn't over fit and can generalize to unsee data in lines five and six we load our data in from file and split the entire dataset into a matrix of samples by features called X by convention and a vector of target values called Y by convention in line seven we create our Train test split keeping twenty percent of the data for testing in line eight we instantiate our XG boost classifier instance with some parameters that we will cover shortly lines nine and ten should appear familiar to you XG boost has a scikit-learn compatible API and this is it it uses the fit predict pattern that you should have seen before where we fit or train our algorithm on the training set and then evaluate it by generating predictions using the test set and comparing our predictions to the actual target labels on the test set lines eleven and twelve evaluate the accuracy of the trained model on the test set and print those results to screen given that extra boost is this popular let's get to using it alreadynow let's talk about what you're actually here for the hottest librarian supervised machine learning XG boost XG boost is an incredibly popular machine learning library for good reason it was developed originally as a C++ command-line application after winning a popular machine learning competition the package started being adopted within the wider machine learning community as a result bindings or functions that tapped into the core C++ code started appearing in a variety of other languages including Python our scala Giulia and java we will cover the Python API in this course what makes XG boost so popular its speed and performance because the core XG boost algorithm is parallelizable it can harness all of the processing power of modern multi-core computers furthermore it is parallelizable on two GPUs and across networks of computers making it feasible to train models on very large data sets on the order of hundreds of millions of training examples however XG boost speed isn't the packages real draw ultimately a fast but poorly performing machine learning algorithm is not going to have wide adoption within the community what makes XG boosts so popular is that it consistently outperforms all other single algorithm methods in machine learning competitions and has been shown to achieve state-of-the-art performance on a variety of machine learning benchmark datasets here's an example of how we can use XG boost using a classification problem in lines 1 through 4 we import the libraries or functions we will be using including XG boost and the Train test split function from scikit-learn remember you always build a machine learning model using trained test splits of your data or some portion of your data is used for training and the remainder is held out for testing to ensure that your model doesn't over fit and can generalize to unsee data in lines five and six we load our data in from file and split the entire dataset into a matrix of samples by features called X by convention and a vector of target values called Y by convention in line seven we create our Train test split keeping twenty percent of the data for testing in line eight we instantiate our XG boost classifier instance with some parameters that we will cover shortly lines nine and ten should appear familiar to you XG boost has a scikit-learn compatible API and this is it it uses the fit predict pattern that you should have seen before where we fit or train our algorithm on the training set and then evaluate it by generating predictions using the test set and comparing our predictions to the actual target labels on the test set lines eleven and twelve evaluate the accuracy of the trained model on the test set and print those results to screen given that extra boost is this popular let's get to using it already\n"