4 ms·
Hey William it's a great book. The beginning was great--it was a great intro. I think the book is still too long. Some of the passages are huge, with a long lo
by confiscate 10y ago
Hey William it's a great book. The beginning was great--it was a great intro.
I think the book is still too long. Some of the passages are huge, with a long long blocks of text. There's a lot of filler words in there like "which is a bummer", and a lot of "say..." dot dot dots. As a reader, you need to spend mental energy in trying to figure out what is the key essence you are trying to convey in each paragraph--this would be fine if the book is dense to begin with, but since you are trying to make this a concise intro, maybe it would be best to reduce this mental energy requirement to the absolute minimum
A bit if feedback is, read the paragraphs your wrote, ask yourself "what is the exact point I am trying to convey here?", and the remove words that can be removed, without taking away from the point. You want the paragraph to be as short and concise is possible, since that's what makes your book different from all the other "dense" books out there on the same topic.
If someone in the book store opens up your book and "skims", if your paragraphs are clearly small, with lots of whitespace between paragraphs, then even without reading the text content in detail, the person can immediately tell your book is special, and completely different from all the other books on NN in the bookstore, and will be more likely to buy it right away.
I think at the beginning it was great. The use of everyday examples and analogies made it very quick and simple for someone reading it to "get" what you mean. But as the chapters progressed, e.g. chapter 3, the text gets more dense and examples get fewer--in the later chapters it looks like you got more excited about the technical details, and the calculus math etc, and the later chapters no longer seem to relate to examples as much or are as concise as before. The later chapters look more and more similar to the other denser literatures in the field
In any case, overall it's a great book. It's very unique I have never seen this condensed approach before, and very special compared to all the other NN literatures out there. It's very refreshing. I'm sure it will inspire a new generation of machine scientists who will remember this for years to come!
Thanks for writing this!
- williamtrask 10y agoThank you so much! Consider it done.
- visarga 10y agoWhen I saw the premise of the book I was initially turned off, fearing an attempt at trivialization of the ML subject matter, but after reading the intro I kind of like it. It's intuitive and would work well as an introduction for hackers. It seems a good way in ML is to hack your way around libraries until you get the feeling, and only after that start reading up on theory or doing some ML classes. The other way around is dry.
- paulsutter 10y agoAn editor. Behind every great writer was an even better editor. For technical documentation, it's actually better to hire a really good technical writing editor than a tech writer. Have the engineer spew out the right ideas, and then the editor puts in the magic that makes it an effective read. It's an easier process than trying to teach the subject to a tech writer.
- agibsonccc 10y agoWe have an oreilly book dropping on deep learning next month at strata hadoop in new york. We've been working on it for a few years now, but yes: can confirm. Our editor has been amazing.The last 10 ft and minor tweaks have been the biggest lesson for us in writing this. (If you click this link: warning: it's not python) https://amazon.com/Deep-Learning-Practitioners-Adam-Gibson/dp/1491914254%3FSubscriptionId=AKIAJ2HQNLFCLUOUMLHQ&tag=zippylab-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1491914254 https://amazon.com/Deep-Learning-Practitioners-Adam-Gibson/d...
- goldenkey 10y agoWarning: if you click the above link you will be cookied with an affiliate tracker, zippylab-20. Even if you buy other products, they will be notified of the exact items purchased and will receive a percentage of your purchases for up to the next 24 hours. The amazon affiliate panel shows an item by item breakdown of any purchases made by cookied users, goodbye private purchases. Here is a non tracked link: https://amazon.com/Deep-Learning-Practitioners-Adam-Gibson/dp/1491914254 https://amazon.com/Deep-Learning-Practitioners-Adam-Gibson/d...
- agibsonccc 10y agoOh good find! I actually jusy copy and pasted this from my search history. Thanks for the catch. I will be more careful in the future. Completely my fault there.
- denzil_correa 10y ago
- jacquesm 10y agoThat's one of the nicest examples of constructive criticism that I've come across in a long time. Bookmarked for future reference to help me become better at this. Thank you for writing this!
- williamtrask 10y agoI'll second that