SPAM: Simplifying Python for Approaching Machine Learning

This WIP paper presents an approach to teaching Python in a first course in machine learning for non-majors. The flexibility of Python enables a skilled programmer to be very expressive, but it can be troublesome to the new student. Students who come to Python from an imperative language often approach the language "non-Pythonically", leading to reliance on traditional programming constructs. We present an alternative approach whereby the concept of functors and monads are introduced early to aid in teaching and learning machine learning.