Can Java be used for Machine Learning?
Yes, Java is very popular in the enterprise world for machine learning projects. You can use Java for machine learning projects using many available machine learning libraries like Apache Mahout or the Advanced Data mining And Machine learning System (ADAMS).
Java is not the most popular programming language for machine learning but it is not far behind the leading languages like Python, R, MATLAB, or Julia.
Because Java has been around for a long time and it is flexible and stable, there are many companies that use it for many projects in machine learning.
According to a 2022 Stack Overflow survey, Java is the 5th most used programming language by professional developers. Many developers use Java for machine learning, app development, big data, backend development, game development, numerical computing, embedded systems, etc.
Java has a lot of resources and libraries that you can use for machine learning and artificial intelligence. Here are some of the popular ones.
APACHE MAHOUT
ADAMS
JAVA-ML
APACHE OPENNLP
DEEPLEARNING4J
RAPIDMINER
WEKA
MALLET
SPARK MLLIB
DEEP JAVA LIBRARY (DJL)
JSAT
ENCOG MACHINE LEARNING FRAMEWORK
JAVAML
MASSIVE ONLINE ANALYSIS (MOA)
and many others.
These libraries are helpful for deep learning, classification, artificial neural networks, regression, forecasting, clustering, association rules, recommendation, and more.
Although Java is popularly used in the enterprise world for machine learning, there are many other programming languages that are preferred to Java by many companies for machine learning. Java still remains the major player but many companies are using other languages as highlighted below.
WHAT ARE ALTERNATIVES TO JAVA FOR MACHINE LEARNING?
There are many programming languages that you can use as an alternative to Java for machine learning. Here are some of the popular ones.
PYTHON
Python has an easy-to-understand syntax that makes it easy to write code. Getting started with Python for machine learning is much easier than with Java. Python is used a lot by developers for machine learning and artificial intelligence.
According to a 2022 Stack Overflow survey, Python is the third most used programming language by professional developers. It is also one of the most loved programming languages with 67.34% of developers who loved it versus 32.66% of developers who dreaded it.
Python has a lot of resources and libraries that you can use for machine learning and artificial intelligence. Here are some of the popular ones.
TENSORFLOW – An open-source library for developing and training machine learning models. Tensorflow also helps developers to build and deploy machine learning-powered applications.
It is used by many companies such as PayPal, Bloomberg, eBay, Dropbox, IBM, Coca-Cola, Google, Airbnb, DeepMind, Uber, Snapchat, Qualcomm, Airbus, Intel, Twitter, and many others.
KERAS – an open-source, high-level, deep learning API developed by Google for implementing artificial neural networks. It can run on Tensorflow, Theano, Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit, and many other platforms.
NUMPY – Numpy is the most popular package for scientific computing with Python. It is used for machine learning, data science, visualization, Array libraries, image processing, signal processing, etc. Numpy also powers many other scientific and machine learning libraries.
Other Python-based machine learning libraries include Scipy, Scikit-Learn, Pytorch, Pandas, Theano, Matplotlib, Nltk.
JULIA
Julia is a great language for machine learning, it is a high-level, high-performance dynamic language. Julia is used for Machine Learning, Scientific Computing, Parallel Computing, Data Science, Data Visualization, etc.
Julia has a lot of packages for machine learning, some of the popular ones include MLJ.jl, Flux.jl, Knet.jl, AlphaZero.jl, Turing.jl Metalhead, ObjectDetector, and TextAnalysis.jl. These packages will helpful for Deep Learning, decision trees, clustering, pre-trained models, reinforcement learning algorithms, etc.
For example, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York used Julia to make models of the United States economy (including estimating COVID-19 shocks in 2021), noting that the language made model estimation “about 10 times faster” than its previous MATLAB implementation.
Julia is a very fast and high-performance language compared to many programming languages used in machine learning. Julia is one of the few high-level programming languages in which petaFLOPS computations have been achieved, others being C, C++, and Fortran.
Julia is the 5th most loved programming language, it is used by many companies for machine learning, these companies include Aviva, NASA, Brazilian INPE, Moderna, BlackRock, Climate Modelling Alliance, Google, Microsoft, and many others.
R
R is an open-source software environment for statistical computing and graphics. R is heavily used in building machine learning models because of its flexibility. There are many R packages that you can use for machine learning.
Some of the popular ones include Classification And Regression Training (CARET), Data Explorer, Dplyr, Ggplot2, mlr3, Xgboost, Superml randomForest, e1071, and many others. Companies using R include Amazon, Google, Flipkart, Firefox, LinkedIn, ANZ, Accenture, Infosys, etc.
MATLAB
MATLAB is commonly used for machine learning to train models, tune parameters, and deploy to production or the edge. It is also used in deep learning for Data preparation, design, simulation, and deployment for deep neural networks.
MATLAB is heavily used in building machine learning models because of its flexibility. Another strength of MATLAB is that it can call functions and subroutines written in the programming languages such as C or Fortran to increase performance.
There are many companies that use MATLAB for machine learning, deep learning, automation, and many other tasks. Some of the popular companies include ABB, Mahindra, Broadcom, Aberdeen Assets Management, Intel, Microsoft, Cognizant, Bosch, Airbus, Land Rover, Qualcomm, HSBC, etc.
C++
C++ is a very good programming language for machine learning. Although C++ is not easy to work with, there are still many engineers and scientists who use it for machine learning and artificial intelligence. C++ is a high-performant language and a lot of engineers use it for performance-critical models.
C++ machine learning libraries can be used for linear and nonlinear optimization, developing and training models, kernel-based learning algorithms, neural networks, classification, regression, forecasting, etc. They can also be used in deep learning for Data preparation, design, and simulation.
C++ has many popular machine learning libraries that help a lot of developers and engineers work on machine learning projects. Some of the popular C++ machine learning libraries include
MLPack,
TensorFlow C++ API,
Shark ML,
OpenNN,
DyNet,
Shogun,
Armadillo, and many others.
C++ is a common choice in machine learning when complex or custom functionality is required. Another strength of C++ is high performance; it is one of the few programming languages in which petaFLOPS computations have been achieved, others being C, Julia, and Fortran.
CONCLUSION
It can be seen that Java can be used for machine learning using many available libraries. Java is a popular choice in the enterprise world for machine learning projects.
Although Java is used by many companies for machine learning, other programming languages such as Python, R, Julia, and MATLAB are preferred.
