Cracking Q-Learning
Last Updated on September 25, 2025 by Editorial Team
Author(s): Rem E
Originally published on Towards AI.
Mastering the second key method in Temporal Difference learning
Last time, we learned the concept of Temporal Difference (TD) learning and explored our first method: SARSA (On-Policy).
This time, we’ll dive into the Off-Policy TD method: Q-learning!
The article discusses the essential methods in reinforcement learning, focusing on Q-Learning, an off-policy TD control method, and how it differs from the on-policy method SARSA. It elaborates on the update formulas for both methods, highlights their advantages and disadvantages in certain environments, and introduces Actor-Critic methods, which separate policy and value function learning. The wrap-up emphasizes the key points covered and encourages further exploration in reinforcement learning techniques.
Read the full blog for free on Medium.
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