How does a total beginner start to learn machine learning if they have some knowledge of programming languages?

I work with people who write C/C programs that generate GBs of data, people who manage TBs of data distributed across giant databases, people who are top notch programmers in SQL, Python, R, and people who have setup an organization wide databases working with Hadoop, Sap, Business Intelligence etc. Learn all the basics from Coursera, but if I really have to compare what you would get out of Coursera compared to the vastness of data science, let us say Coursera is as good as eating a burrito at Chipotle Mexican Grill. You certainly can satiate yourself, and you have a few things to eat there. The pathway to value adding data science is really quite deep, and I consider it equivalent to a five star buffet offering 20 cuisines and some 500 different recipes. Coursera is certainly a good starting point, and one should certainly go over these courses, but I personally never paid any money to Coursera, and I could easily learn a variety of things bit by bit over time. Kaggle is a really good resource for budding engineers to look at various other people's ideas and build on them. Learn all the basics from Coursera, but if I really have to compare what you would get out of Coursera compared to the vastness of data science, let us say Coursera is as good as eating a burrito at Chipotle Mexican Grill. You certainly can satiate yourself, and you have a few things to eat there. The pathway to value adding data science is really quite deep, and I consider it equivalent to a five star buffet offering 20 cuisines and some 500 different recipes. Coursera is certainly a good starting point, and one should certainly go over these courses, but I personally never paid any money to Coursera, and I could easily learn a variety of things bit by bit over time. Kaggle is a really good resource for budding engineers to look at various other people's ideas and build on them. Here is an overall sequence of how I progressed myself. The first thing I want to inspire anyone and everyone is to learn the "science".