[Neural Network] Refactor NeuralNetwork support by COSA Grant

[joeyklee]

Dear ml5 community,

I'm submitting a new issue. Please see the details below.

Background

@yining1023 and I have been awarded a mini grant from COSA to support the ml5.js project and we are planning to refactor the ml5.neuralNetwork() feature as part of this grant project.

Given the importance of the feature for ml5, we believe it is important to ensure that the ml5.neuralNetwork is as stable, modular, and friendly as possible to both developers and users.

Recent additions to the neuralNetwork feature such as the neuroEvolution functionality has made it clear that a more thorough investigation and structuring of the neuralNetwork feature is in order.

We are excited to dive in and refactor the neuralNetwork so that new features and functionality can be added over time and so that the existing implementation can be easier maintained and read.

Goals

The goals are to make the ml5.neuralNetwork easier to maintain and build upon. This will involve:

• restructuring the features and functionality into more modular and readable functions
• structure the neuralNetwork API so that it can be extended over time
• defining and structuring the API for better memory efficiency and performance.

Timeline

Summer 2020

[bomanimc]

@joeyklee @yining1023 nice! By the way, I'm going through all of the issues here and adding the neural-network tag to any issues that are related to the NN class. I'll have data on this soon, but at the moment, I think that the majority of our model-specific questions are related to the NN class.