lanking520 commented on issue #14784: What is the difference between Symbol and Gluon? URL: https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/issues/14784#issuecomment-486470231 Q1: Generally speaking, you can do DL in both imperative or Symbolic ways. MXNet are supporting both of them. imperative way (NDArray) is more like running code from top to down. You will get the result from each layer you write. It's very convienient to debug. However, Symbolic way (Symbol) is done for performance, it will create a computation graph based on the code block you created and executed them in a single piece. And what you are thinking is right, Symbolic way is usually faster than imperative. Q2: Not fully, but mostly. We are covering 99% of them to make sure they can be used. Gluon is an abstract layer on the existing NDArray API in mxnet with a bunch of optimization. It designed to be imperative. The advantage point for Gluon is the bridge to convert a imperative model to symbolic model. By using Hybridize block and control-flow operator, you can easily convert a imperative implementation to a symbolic model in a second. So you don't have to write the model again in Symbolic ways (write in Symbol). I would recommend to make a start using Gluon APIs.
---------------------------------------------------------------- This is an automated message from the Apache Git Service. To respond to the message, please log on to GitHub and use the URL above to go to the specific comment. For queries about this service, please contact Infrastructure at: [email protected] With regards, Apache Git Services
