On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 7:48 AM, klo <[email protected]> wrote: >> "NumPy 1.5 Beginner's Guide", Ivan Idris, >> http://www.packtpub.com/numpy-1-5-using-real-world-examples-beginners-guide/book
> Some reviews on first title: > > http://gael-varoquaux.info/blog/?p=161 > http://glowingpython.blogspot.com/2011/12/book-review-numpy-15-beginners-guide.html Interesting -- I was asked to review the Numpy 1.5 Beginner's Guide, and I did read through the whole thing, and make notes, but never wrote up a full review. One reason is that I found it hard to motivate myself to write what would have been a bad review. I don't really disagree with the summaries provided in the two reviews above, but I found two things: 1) There was too much wasted space in the book -- places where there would be a nice example, then another one that was the same thing, but, for example, using a different random number distribution -- we really don't need to see almost identical code and plots take up another bunch of pages -- i.e. I think the book could have been maybe half as long with about the same content. 2) -- and this is worse -- The author did not seem to be all that familiar with the real strengths of numpy and idiomatic numpy code -- it felt like almost a translation of MATLAB material, or at least written by someone that had not yet made the full transition to numpy from another language. Aside from small style issues was the glaring omission of any discussion of array broadcasting! So it may be hard to reach a consensus on a book being "good"! That being said, I don't have a problem with listing this book on numpy sites -- though it would be nice to have easy access of reviews right there, too. -Chris -- Christopher Barker, Ph.D. Oceanographer Emergency Response Division NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception [email protected] _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list [email protected] http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
