Why TensorFlow Is so Popular
Let's take a quick look at TensorFlow and discover why it is so popular. Explore its features, such as responsive construct and flexibility.
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Join For FreeFeatures of Tensorflow
Below, we are discussing some important TensorFlow Features.
Responsive Construct
With TensorFlow, we can easily visualize each and every part of the graph, which is not an option while using Numpy or SciKit.
Flexible
One of the very important Tensorflow Features is that it is flexible in its operability, meaning it has modularity and the parts of it that you want to make standalone it offers you that option.
Easily Trainable
It is easily trainable on CPU as well as GPU for distributed computing.
Parallel Neural Network Training
TensorFlow offers pipelining in the sense that you can train multiple neural networks and multiple GPUs, which makes the models very efficient on large-scale systems.
Large Community
Needless to say, if it has been developed by Google, there is already a large team of software engineers who work on stability improvements continuously.
Open Source
The best thing about this Machine Learning library is that it is open source, so anyone can use it as long as they have internet connectivity.
People manipulate the library in ways unimaginable and come up with an amazing variety of useful products. It has become another DIY community that has a huge forum for people getting started with it and for those who find it hard to use it or to get help with their work.
Feature Columns
Tensorflow has feature columns that could be thought of as intermediaries between raw data and estimators, therefore, bridging input data with your model.
The figure above describes how the feature column is implemented.
Availability of Statistical Distributions
The library provides distribution functions including Bernoulli, Beta, Chi2, Uniform, Gamma, which are important especially while considering probabilistic approaches such as Bayesian models.
Layered Components
TensorFlow includes functions like tf.contrib.layers that produce layered operations of weights and biases and also provide batch normalization, convolution layer, dropout layer, etc.
tf.contrib.layers.optimizers has optimizers such as Adagrad, SGD, and Momentum, which are often used to solve optimization problems for numerical analysis. It provides initializers with tf.contrib.layers.initializers used to maintain the gradient scale.
This type of TensorFlow Features makes it what it is today.
Visualizer (With TensorBoard)
With TensorBoard, you can inspect a totally different representation of a model and make the changed necessary while debugging it.
Event Logger (With TensorBoard)
Just like UNIX, where you use tail –f <log_file > to monitor the output of tasks at the cmd and do quick checks, logging events in Tensorflow allows doing the same by logging events and summaries from the graph and the output over time with TensorBoard.
Conclusion
This was all on Tensorflow features. Hope you like our explanation.
As you saw, there is a gamut of Tensorflow Features, and it is one of the reasons behind its success. By now, you looked into what TensorFlow is and the popularity of TensorFlow. Next up will be the pros and cons of TensorFlow along with an easy-to-follow installation guide.
Published at DZone with permission of Rinu Gour. See the original article here.
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