Comment by bzhang255

3 years ago

The initial preview is a little disappointing because it feels like it does a great job displaying the pedagogical style but not enough to demonstrate the pedagogical value (i.e. whether this resource actually does a good job teaching a complex topic).

Given the wealth of information and the problem of appraising it all, I don't think it helps this book that it costs $55 and requires the reader to learn an esoteric language (for the field), when there are so many educational books and lecture series by experts in the field that you can find freely available online.

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bzhang255

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timmg  3 years ago

> The initial preview is a little disappointing because it feels like it does a great job displaying the pedagogical style but not enough to demonstrate the pedagogical value (i.e. whether this resource actually does a good job teaching a complex topic).

This is exactly the concern I had when I saw what it was. I'll definitely keep my eye on it and read the reviews.

sn9  3 years ago

The great thing about Scheme is that you can learn it in less than 10 minutes and focus on the ideas.

  • bzhang255  3 years ago

    Sure - but I think that's the least important part of my comment. The preview is basically just an intro to Scheme. I would rather be able to see how well the book covers interesting ideas about deep learning. While the jury is still out, my personal skepticism is that this is a really beautiful passion project that looks great on bookshelves, but that any serious learner would be better served dedicating their time to working through the existing, more traditional, and very high-quality resources available online.

jhbadger  3 years ago

I would think that the main audience for this books would be people who enjoyed the other books in the authors' "Little" series, which almost all use Scheme, so it wouldn't be something new to learn.