Question - How is Data Science different from traditional application programming?
Answer -
Data Science takes a fundamentally different approach in building systems that provide value than traditional application development.
In traditional programming paradigms, we used to analyze the input, figure out the expected output, and write code, which contains rules and statements needed to transform the provided input into the expected output. As we can imagine, these rules were not easy to write, especially, for data that even computers had a hard time understanding, e.g., images, videos, etc.
Data Science shifts this process a little bit. In it, we need access to large volumes of data that contain the necessary inputs and their mappings to the expected outputs. Then, we use Data Science algorithms, which use mathematical analysis to generate rules to map the given inputs to outputs.
This process of rule generation is called training. After training, we use some data that was set aside before the training phase to test and check the system’s accuracy. The generated rules are a kind of a black box, and we cannot understand how the inputs are being transformed into outputs.
However, If the accuracy is good enough, then we can use the system (also called a model).
As described above, in traditional programming, we had to write the rules to map the input to the output, but in Data Science, the rules are automatically generated or learned from the given data. This helped solve some really difficult challenges that were being faced by several companies.