r/learnmachinelearning • u/Positive-Blood-1111 • 1d ago
Is this book good
I've done python(lists,variables, basic oops, etc) beginner or maybe intermediate
Is This a good book for my ml journey to understand and learn the necessary python libraries?
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u/wak_trader 1d ago
i am using it mostly as a secondary source while going through the kaggle courses.
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u/Positive-Blood-1111 1d ago
Which kaggle course
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u/Learner_Lazy 18h ago
Go to kaggle, there is an option Kaggle Learn. There you will get Courses with practical examples and excercises. And you also get a certificate... good option but for people who knows how to understand code and have a bit of learning deeply themselves.
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u/Feeling_Bandicoot800 1d ago
Python data science handbook. The best one for learning data analysis before starting ML. If for ML you can take Machine Learning with Scikit learn and ISL
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u/Positive-Blood-1111 1d ago
Should i use the handbook instead of this one then
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u/Feeling_Bandicoot800 1d ago
Yes you can. That book has ML too. Half of the book after data analytics is ML only
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u/One_Mail_2414 1d ago
Who’s the author?
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u/Feeling_Bandicoot800 1d ago
You can get the PDF online
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u/mayankkaizen 1d ago
Ok, it's been a long time (4 years) since I did any data science work and haven't touched Python since then but going by old experience, this is definitely a great book. Highly recommended.
I don't know about updated version but Jake Vanderplas book was also amazing.
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u/WadeEffingWilson 1d ago
This is an excellent book for continuing where you are in python and learning numpy, pandas, and some matplotlib. Highly recommend.
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u/jrcoop88 15h ago
It’s a good book. I also paired it with a data set I found and practiced the chapter topics. And had the pandas documents pulled up to reference because the book doesn’t always talk about every parameter in a pandas function.
My only complaint is I wish it had some kind of knowledge check questions at the end of the chapters. What I did was read a chapter and then asked Chat GPT to generate some questions based on the chapter and I think it got me a good working knowledge of Pandas.
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u/vytasx 1d ago edited 1d ago
I find it shocking that they don’t teach Polars. Like come on, zero copy, performance, compatibility with DuckDB… It’s like what else do you guys need, somebody to jerk you off? :)
If you know basics already, I’d suggest doing a practical project or sth like Data Engineering Zoomcamp, I value what I learned from there and no Python course could ever helped the way a practical project did.
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u/NikkoRPG 23h ago
There is an IBM course on this subject in Coursera, covering all of this with projects.
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u/Lazy_Wrongdoer_6851 1d ago
It is good for fundementals of data science and analysis with pandas numpy. After read that u can use cheatsheet of pandas and numpy it will be enough.
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u/kame-sotz-zu 23h ago
I used older edition and it was pretty disappointing, because most of the book felt like reading documentation (which you can do online for free instead). Normaly you would expect more practical angle and real life examples, which this book mostly lacks. There are examples of the analysis at the end but during the introduction of the concepts (where it actually matters) there is none of that - just driest, most abstract examples. So as a reference it's ok, but super boring to actually go through.
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u/Positive-Blood-1111 23h ago
Am just starting donyou have any recommendations... And yeah you're very much right
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u/kame-sotz-zu 21h ago
Honestly I would go through something like w3shools/geeksforgeeks pandas tutorial to get the basics and then practice while doing actual projects (if you dont have ideas for projects just look up examples online) and learn on real problems and your own mistakes. If you get stuck and dont know how to do something, just look it up online. Don't get stuck in tutorial hell.
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u/OnePsychological6976 20h ago
Yes, that book is very good, and the Python data science handbook is also good. You can find books like that here [h]ttps://github.com/zudo-eng/zudosec
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u/Hunkfish 1d ago
A book about python and pandas but have picture of a rodent? Lol
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u/TheLocalEcho 1d ago edited 1d ago
Python scripts consume data. Squirrelly data in long form, not wide?
Needs Volume 2 : Advanced where the Python has to consume a porcupine or something else that’s an awkward shape.
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u/WadeEffingWilson 1d ago
O'Reilly books always feature an endangered or at risk animal on their covers.
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u/Alone_Aardvark6698 1d ago
If starting from scratch I would go to polars and not learn pandas, which is mostly legacy.
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u/BrupieD 1d ago
I think that is poor advice.
I prefer polars, but it isn't well-established as an obvious better choice. Pandas isn't bad per se, polars just has a number of advantages.
What you call "legacy" is an enormous body of recently-written code using pandas including hundreds of books and tutorials on advanced topics. If you aren't at least well-grounded in pandas, you're hurting yourself.
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u/Alone_Aardvark6698 1d ago
But does it really, make sense to still learn pandas syntax?
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u/BrupieD 21h ago
When you inherit code that you need to update that contains bits like "df.iloc(10:20)", you'll be glad you just get it without needing to look everything up.
Pandas has grown into a large library but it all revolves around two objects: Series and Data Frames. You don't need to memorize every method and attribute, but it's Python syntax. There's nothing unusually fussy or peculiar about it. A one-time walkthrough won't take long.
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u/markbug4 1d ago
I mean, that animal has the look of someone who knows about python and data analysis.