If you just want to use the libraries, you can stop here.
If you want to know more, read chapters 1-3 of nonlinear programming by Professor Dimitri Bertsekas before convex optimization. http://www.athenasc.com/nonlinbook.html
I think Facebook does not need to layout, test and contract manufacture motherboard for the servers. Each iteration in hardware cost lots of money. This is not agile. Better make the specs and have ODM companies handle that.
Considering GC and concurrency issues, this talk is good for people making language choices on the JVM. In the end, he said he personally thinks STM is not a good way to program concurrency. And, I think immutable data is good for GC.
To my memory, session notes of CS229 is good enough for understanding SVM and gaussian distributions. Also watch youtube videos. http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs229/materials.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzxYlbK2c7E
If you just want to use the libraries, you can stop here.
If you want to know more, read chapters 1-3 of nonlinear programming by Professor Dimitri Bertsekas before convex optimization. http://www.athenasc.com/nonlinbook.html
Then, you can try to finish EE364 and watch the videos. http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee364a/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McLq1hEq3UY
If you want to roll your own algorithms, you have to know some optimization tools. http://cvxr.com/cvx/
And there is some statistics knowledge you have to fill in. I used these: http://www.stat.umn.edu/geyer/5101/ http://www.stat.umn.edu/geyer/5102/ R is used in the courses.