Fair enough, thanks. One of the reasons I think that might be a better way at the problem is it would encourage readers to really dig into a specific problem a

Fair enough, thanks. One of the reasons I think that might be a better way at the problem is it would encourage readers to really dig into a specific problem and get a sense for behaviors in the data, as they develop their understanding of what each technique can add. Part of the trick would be to get a really good publicly available data set about a problem with enduring significance. Maybe sometime from an old competition that garnered a lot of interest in its day, like say the Netflix recommendation problem. In a way, such a book would walk you through a lot of the stages of learning that the typical book presumes you would anyway do on your own in your own practice. For me, working on my own, it would fill in some of the practical questions of what someone working with colleagues would learn about by osmosis.