How To Create an Algorithm Test Harness From Scratch With Python

Last Updated on December 11, 2019

We cannot know which algorithm will be best for a given problem.

Therefore, we need to design a test harness that we can use to evaluate different machine learning algorithms.

In this tutorial, you will discover how to develop a machine learning algorithm test harness from scratch in Python.

After completing this tutorial, you will know:

• How to implement a train-test algorithm test harness.
• How to implement a k-fold cross-validation algorithm test harness.

Kick-start your project with my new book Machine Learning Algorithms From Scratch, including step-by-step tutorials and the Python source code files for all examples.

Let’s get started.

• Update Jan/2017: Changed the calculation of fold_size in cross_validation_split() to always be an integer. Fixes issues with Python 3.
• Update Mar/2018: Added alternate link to download the dataset as the original appears to have been taken down.
• Update Aug/2018: Tested and updated to work with Python 3.6.