Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications by Toby Segaran Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications
Book Review: The most accessible book on machine learning I've found
Summary: 5 Stars
I first learned of this book just a few weeks ago, shortly before it was available. I immediately read the sample chapter on the publisher's website and was certain I had to get a hold of a copy.
I was not in the least bit disappointed with what I found. It has been quite a while since I've looked at any Python code (I'm more of a Ruby fan, personally), but the code is easy to follow and it's a simple matter to extract the basic concepts into any language.
I have spent quite a few years now watching the field of machine intelligence from the sidelines, occasionally reading the odd technical write up or wikipedia article, trying to wrap my brain around the basic ideas. The thing is, it's not clear to me that in some regards, it's not that complex. It's just that most of the existing books and articles are written for those immersed in the field. This book is not like that. It explains things in clear language that is easy to follow, using simplified examples and making excellent use of graphics to "show" you how it works.
If you really want to dig in deep, Segaran provides exercises at the end of each chapter and gives you an appendix full of mathematical formulas (the "pure" representation of the algorithms).
Finally, I should mention that the last chapter does what so many other technical books should but don't: it clearly summarizes everything he has shown you. He does this in a straightforward way so that you won't have to go searching through the book, rereading everything again, to put these techniques into practice.
Book Review: A pragmatic and bright approach to a fascinating subject
Summary: 5 Stars
"Collective Intelligence" is a masterpiece on a subject that is difficult to approach unless you enjoy reading highly specialized papers.
The subject is extremely interesting in the anytime/anywhere information age where data mining technologies and smart algorithms are shaping the way we experience our "digital" lives.
It is hard to get up from the chair and walk away from the computer before finishing reading (and experiencing by coding/playing around with the so interesting examples in the book), like in a good thriller you just want to devour the information to the end and start experimenting yourself with all the new skills that this book will bring for sure to most of its readers.
I have to say that this has been a 2in1 book as I was not familiar with Python. I am amazed now by the variety of libraries and the power of this language to do almost everything your imagination can bring. Both subjects together in the same book have made me to enjoy so much.
Also, as a PhD candidate on Evolutionary Computation I cannot be happier. At last I can see a book with an excellent pragmatic approach and a "hands-on" philosophy which is, in fact, the best way to learn almost anything.
Very useful indeed and it will definitely become permanent part of my most select library.
Book Review: Accessible introduction to complex topics
Summary: 5 Stars
Segaran has done an excellent job of explaining complex algorithms and mathematical concepts with clear examples and code that is both easy to read and useful. His coding style in Python often reads as clearly as pseudo-code in algorithm books. The examples give real-world grounding to abstract concepts like collaborative filtering and bayesian classification.
My favorite part is how he shows us code (gives it to us!) that goes out into the world, grabs masses of data and does interesting things with it. The use of a hierarchical clustering algorithm to dig into people's intrinsic desires in life as expressed in zebo is worth the price of the book alone. The graph that shows a strong connection between "wife", "kids", and "home" but a different connection between "husband", "children", and "job" is IMHO just fascinating.
Gems like that make this book worth reading cover to cover. After that it can happily hang out on your shelf as a reference anytime you need to build something to mine user data and extract the wisdom of crowds.
Book Review: A "hands-on" approach to an otherwise abstract topic
Summary: 5 Stars
"Programming Collective Intelligence" is a great book. I took a college course on data mining and this book really would have come in handy.
From a "hands-on" programming perspective, the information on the useful libraries in python for crawling, parsing RSS feeds, python drawing, and accessing popular RESTful APIs are really valuable. The code samples are well documented and rather timely. I think Toby has done an amazingly cogent job of demonstrating the nuts and bolts of implementing the plethora of data mining and AI-related concepts pertinent to the field of Collective Intelligence. Additionally, I was new to Python and this book was a real eye opener.
In fact, more than just a book on Collective Intelligence, this is a really useful Python book. I learned a lot about Python reading through the examples and trying to get them to work on my laptop. (I was new to Python before this book, but have since started using Python at my work).
The author has demystified the abstract idea of Collective Intelligence and presented the concepts in an excellent programming language choice in Python. Most of the topics covered are things most developers just hear about. Taking a college course on Data Mining or Artificial Intelligence may expose one to the ideas, but I have never encountered a book that introduced the topics covered in "Programming Collective Intelligence" in a way so intuitive and familiar to the programmer. Distilling all of the topics into a set of very useful Python script really illustrated how practical and available these concepts really are in ones daily work. I will definitely make use of Toby's book.