Hi all,
I have just completed deeplearning.ai courses and am trying to find resource to learn pytorch. I know fast.ai is built on top of pytorch which is awesome, but I’d also like to be able to develop models with just pytorch end to end. I am wondering if fast.ai courses are good for that purpose?
Thanks!
-Xiaotian
Hi Xiaotian. Unfortunately I am too new to fast.ai to comment fully on this. I will be following this thread to learn the answer myself. However, having taken Part 1 of this course there are small vignettes where we get into pytorch during class. We dig deeper into the code (fast.ai lib and pytorch as well) in our notebooks as homework. And toward the end of Part 1 we go deeper into how fast.ai integrates with pytorch. I assume Part 2 goes even deeper.
In Part 1 classes you will surely learn about pytorch and why fast.ai on top of it offers tremendous efficiencies. However, if you only want to use pytorch (end to end) and omit fast.ai I would suggest going the kindle route. Most of these classes are heavy (for good reason) on the fast.ai lib. Just my 2 cents… Cheers!
P.S. I would strongly recommend going to Lesson 2 [1:05:35]. It should help you make your decision.
Hi @theyear2000, thank you for your response! My concern is that the course does not explain how pytorch is used in fastai lib so after complete the course I only learn how to use fastai library but very little about pytorch.
Either way from what I have learnt about fast.ai so far, it’s awesome. I am so grateful to the people behind this site.
-Xiaotian
Hi Xiaotian. This concern is relative based on my experience. The classes absolutely do go into pytorch. And they go even further into the integration. However, it is really up to you how much time you put into learning the underlying code (how deep are you willing to dig into the code). There is not enough time in the class to cover the minutia in all aspects of the code. We do that for “homework” and use this forum for Q&A. If you are looking for a structured beginning to end document or course that is going to walk you straight though pytorch from A to Z you may want to kindle it.
However, be sure to take this course at some point! At least try out Lesson 1 as it will give you a sense of the top-down structure and intro to the codebase. To me, fast.ai is not only the incredible library with free classes that get you going immediately. It is also (maybe even most importantly) this community. Everyone I interact with here is fantastic and we all try helping each other out as much as possible. It is a very active community…
I wish you luck!