honestly you guys are crazy if you think shark is gonna help you learn machine learning. Its ideal for deployment of ML on things like embedded computer, robotics, games etc. where real time learning is required. Machine learning requires alot of experimentation and C++ is a terrible medium for that. There are loads of good machine learning libraries implemented for python and matlab. Pretty much every good paper in machine learning is accompanied by an algorithm implemented in matlab or python or R. learn using those reference designs. Once you figured out what you want, then deploy on a system in C++ by all means using shark. I do robotics for a living, and I do go from scripting to C++. Unless its absolutely necessary I avoid C++. Only things like vision which is so CPU hungry that it has its own computer do I require C++, every other algorithm stays in python.