5 ms·

Free book on Statistics for Programmers

142 points by seshagiric 15y ago

greenyoda 15y ago
The posted URL links directly to a PDF file. Here's a link to the book's home page, where you can read its description, browse it in HTML or download the PDF, code samples and data files: Think Stats -- Probability and Statistics for Programmers http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkstats http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkstats (The book is published under Creative Commons, so this is a legal download.)
kqr2 15y ago
The author, Allen B. Downey, also has another free book called Think Complexity. This book is about complexity science, data structures and algorithms, intermediate programming in Python, and the philosophy of science: http://www.greenteapress.com/compmod/ http://www.greenteapress.com/compmod/
- mapleoin 15y ago
  Hah, I just bought this book from O'Reilly last week. I had no idea it was available online. Though, the ereader formats might be worth it.
ssharp 15y ago
When glancing through the book, I noticed the brief section on the Monty Hall problem. When I first heard about the problem, my immediate reaction was to simulate it, which is exactly what this book suggests doing. For those inclined to approach problems this way, I think this book could be very helpful in teaching baseline statistics. One of the things that bugged me about my college stats class was that it was taught at such a low-level. The material never advanced to a point to where I felt I was learning things that could be resourceful down the line. Instead of immediately jumping into Excel or SPSS datasets and doing meaningful things with them, we were busy doing stats exercises by-hand, which seems like such a waste of time. Sure, you have to know what the various elements mean, but do you really need to know the nuts and bolts of it, when in actually, you're going to be using a computer to do it anyway?
obtu 15y ago
I really liked O'Reilly's Statistics in a Nutshell; it's readable, it's well structured if you need to look up something, but it isn't just a toolbox, it also spends the time to lay down the concepts and put things in perspective.
- brianobush 15y ago
  I would wait for the second edition, the first edition has too many errors and typos. The errata is very long.
lylejohnson 15y ago
Is the content in this version any different from the ebook by the same author and published by O'Reilly? (Because I bought the latter awhile back...)

142 points by seshagiric 15y ago

The posted URL links directly to a PDF file. Here's a link to the book's home page, where you can read its description, browse it in HTML or download the PDF, code samples and data files: Think Stats -- Probability and Statistics for Programmers http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkstats http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkstats (The book is published under Creative Commons, so this is a legal download.)

kqr2 15y ago

The author, Allen B. Downey, also has another free book called Think Complexity. This book is about complexity science, data structures and algorithms, intermediate programming in Python, and the philosophy of science: http://www.greenteapress.com/compmod/ http://www.greenteapress.com/compmod/

mapleoin 15y ago
Hah, I just bought this book from O'Reilly last week. I had no idea it was available online. Though, the ereader formats might be worth it.

ssharp 15y ago

When glancing through the book, I noticed the brief section on the Monty Hall problem. When I first heard about the problem, my immediate reaction was to simulate it, which is exactly what this book suggests doing. For those inclined to approach problems this way, I think this book could be very helpful in teaching baseline statistics. One of the things that bugged me about my college stats class was that it was taught at such a low-level. The material never advanced to a point to where I felt I was learning things that could be resourceful down the line. Instead of immediately jumping into Excel or SPSS datasets and doing meaningful things with them, we were busy doing stats exercises by-hand, which seems like such a waste of time. Sure, you have to know what the various elements mean, but do you really need to know the nuts and bolts of it, when in actually, you're going to be using a computer to do it anyway?

obtu 15y ago

I really liked O'Reilly's Statistics in a Nutshell; it's readable, it's well structured if you need to look up something, but it isn't just a toolbox, it also spends the time to lay down the concepts and put things in perspective.

brianobush 15y ago
I would wait for the second edition, the first edition has too many errors and typos. The errata is very long.

lylejohnson 15y ago

Is the content in this version any different from the ebook by the same author and published by O'Reilly? (Because I bought the latter awhile back...)