Reader reviews

An enjoyable and informative read, though it could have been shorter.

There is a particular kind of technical book that is dense without being difficult, and this is one of them. I particularly liked the way the author builds up from simple cases before introducing the harder material. The exercises at the end of each chapter are worth doing — they caught a few misconceptions I did not know I had. Good value for the price and worth the time it takes to work through properly.

Recommended, with the caveat that it is not a gentle introduction.

I had been on the fence about this one for a while, and I should have bought it sooner. There is a section near the end that ties several earlier ideas together in a way I had not seen before. The chapters on databases & big data are the strongest — the examples are stripped down but complete, and I could follow along without constant guessing. Recommended, with the caveat that it is not a gentle introduction.

Genuinely excellent — I finished it in a week and immediately started again.

There is a particular kind of technical book that is dense without being difficult, and this is one of them. The examples are small enough to type out and experiment with, which is exactly what I want from a book like this. Some terminology is introduced without much ceremony; I had to look a few things up along the way. An easy five stars from me. I look forward to whatever the author writes next.

Strong content, uneven pacing. I would still recommend it.

I had been on the fence about this one for a while, and I should have bought it sooner. The code samples assume a particular environment, which took a bit of fiddling to get running properly. The balance between theory and practice is well judged; neither side dominates. Four stars, and I suspect a second edition could easily push it to five.

Exactly the book I needed. Straight to the point and genuinely useful.

This is the third book I have read on ai & machine learning this year, and it is comfortably the best of them. The code samples assume a particular environment, which took a bit of fiddling to get running properly. It is denser than the page count suggests, and I found myself slowing down around the middle. Worth the money and the reading time, without hesitation.

Outstanding. I kept finding reasons to come back to it.

I was looking for something that would bridge the gap between tutorials and proper reference material, and this does that well. The examples are small enough to type out and experiment with, which is exactly what I want from a book like this. The early chapters move quickly through material I already knew, but the later sections were genuinely new to me. One of those books that pays for itself within the first few chapters. Highly recommended.