Logistic Regression Tutorial for Machine Learning

Last Updated on August 12, 2019

Logistic regression is one of the most popular machine learning algorithms for binary classification. This is because it is a simple algorithm that performs very well on a wide range of problems.

In this post you are going to discover the logistic regression algorithm for binary classification, step-by-step. After reading this post you will know:

  • How to calculate the logistic function.
  • How to learn the coefficients for a logistic regression model using stochastic gradient descent.
  • How to make predictions using a logistic regression model.

This post was written for developers and does not assume a background in statistics or probability. Open a spreadsheet and follow along. If you have any questions about Logistic Regression ask in the comments and I will do my best to answer.

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Let’s get started.

Update Nov/2016: Fixed a small typo in the update equation for b0.