Book picks similar to
Pattern Classification by David G. Stork


machine-learning
computer-science
data-science
mathematics

Learn Python The Hard Way


Zed A. Shaw - 2010
    The title says it is the hard way to learn to writecode but it’s actually not. It’s the “hard” way only in that it’s the way people used to teach things. In this book youwill do something incredibly simple that all programmers actually do to learn a language: 1. Go through each exercise. 2. Type in each sample exactly. 3. Make it run.That’s it. This will be very difficult at first, but stick with it. If you go through this book, and do each exercise for1-2 hours a night, then you’ll have a good foundation for moving on to another book. You might not really learn“programming” from this book, but you will learn the foundation skills you need to start learning the language.This book’s job is to teach you the three most basic essential skills that a beginning programmer needs to know:Reading And Writing, Attention To Detail, Spotting Differences.

Head First Python


Paul Barry - 2010
    You'll quickly learn the language's fundamentals, then move onto persistence, exception handling, web development, SQLite, data wrangling, and Google App Engine. You'll also learn how to write mobile apps for Android, all thanks to the power that Python gives you.We think your time is too valuable to waste struggling with new concepts. Using the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory to craft a multi-sensory learning experience, Head First Python uses a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works, not a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep.

The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds and the Laws of Physics


Roger Penrose - 1989
    Admittedly, computers now play chess at the grandmaster level, but do they understand the game as we do? Can a computer eventually do everything a human mind can do? In this absorbing and frequently contentious book, Roger Penrose--eminent physicist and winner, with Stephen Hawking, of the prestigious Wolf prize--puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be emulated by a machine. Penrose examines what physics and mathematics can tell us about how the mind works, what they can't, and what we need to know to understand the physical processes of consciousness. He is among a growing number of physicists who think Einstein wasn't being stubborn when he said his little finger told him that quantum mechanics is incomplete, and he concludes that laws even deeper than quantum mechanics are essential for the operation of a mind. To support this contention, Penrose takes the reader on a dazzling tour that covers such topics as complex numbers, Turing machines, complexity theory, quantum mechanics, formal systems, Godel undecidability, phase spaces, Hilbert spaces, black holes, white holes, Hawking radiation, entropy, quasicrystals, the structure of the brain, and scores of other subjects. The Emperor's New Mind will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in modern physics and its relation to philosophical issues, as well as to physicists, mathematicians, philosophers and those on either side of the AI debate.

R Graphics Cookbook: Practical Recipes for Visualizing Data


Winston Chang - 2012
    Each recipe tackles a specific problem with a solution you can apply to your own project, and includes a discussion of how and why the recipe works.Most of the recipes use the ggplot2 package, a powerful and flexible way to make graphs in R. If you have a basic understanding of the R language, you're ready to get started.Use R's default graphics for quick exploration of dataCreate a variety of bar graphs, line graphs, and scatter plotsSummarize data distributions with histograms, density curves, box plots, and other examplesProvide annotations to help viewers interpret dataControl the overall appearance of graphicsRender data groups alongside each other for easy comparisonUse colors in plotsCreate network graphs, heat maps, and 3D scatter plotsStructure data for graphing

Visualize This: The FlowingData Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics


Nathan Yau - 2011
    Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could actually visualize data in such a way that we could maximize its potential and tell a story in a clear, concise manner? Thanks to the creative genius of Nathan Yau, we can. With this full-color book, data visualization guru and author Nathan Yau uses step-by-step tutorials to show you how to visualize and tell stories with data. He explains how to gather, parse, and format data and then design high quality graphics that help you explore and present patterns, outliers, and relationships.Presents a unique approach to visualizing and telling stories with data, from a data visualization expert and the creator of flowingdata.com, Nathan Yau Offers step-by-step tutorials and practical design tips for creating statistical graphics, geographical maps, and information design to find meaning in the numbers Details tools that can be used to visualize data-native graphics for the Web, such as ActionScript, Flash libraries, PHP, and JavaScript and tools to design graphics for print, such as R and Illustrator Contains numerous examples and descriptions of patterns and outliers and explains how to show them Visualize This demonstrates how to explain data visually so that you can present your information in a way that is easy to understand and appealing.

Linear Algebra and Its Applications


Gilbert Strang - 1976
    While the mathematics is there, the effort is not all concentrated on proofs. Strang's emphasis is on understanding. He explains concepts, rather than deduces. This book is written in an informal and personal style and teaches real mathematics. The gears change in Chapter 2 as students reach the introduction of vector spaces. Throughout the book, the theory is motivated and reinforced by genuine applications, allowing pure mathematicians to teach applied mathematics.

Interactive Data Visualization for the Web


Scott Murray - 2013
    It’s easy and fun with this practical, hands-on introduction. Author Scott Murray teaches you the fundamental concepts and methods of D3, a JavaScript library that lets you express data visually in a web browser. Along the way, you’ll expand your web programming skills, using tools such as HTML and JavaScript.This step-by-step guide is ideal whether you’re a designer or visual artist with no programming experience, a reporter exploring the new frontier of data journalism, or anyone who wants to visualize and share data.Learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and SVG basicsDynamically generate web page elements from your data—and choose visual encoding rules to style themCreate bar charts, scatter plots, pie charts, stacked bar charts, and force-directed layoutsUse smooth, animated transitions to show changes in your dataIntroduce interactivity to help users explore data through different viewsCreate customized geographic maps with dataExplore hands-on with downloadable code and over 100 examples

Spark: The Definitive Guide: Big Data Processing Made Simple


Bill Chambers - 2018
    With an emphasis on improvements and new features in Spark 2.0, authors Bill Chambers and Matei Zaharia break down Spark topics into distinct sections, each with unique goals. You’ll explore the basic operations and common functions of Spark’s structured APIs, as well as Structured Streaming, a new high-level API for building end-to-end streaming applications. Developers and system administrators will learn the fundamentals of monitoring, tuning, and debugging Spark, and explore machine learning techniques and scenarios for employing MLlib, Spark’s scalable machine-learning library. Get a gentle overview of big data and Spark Learn about DataFrames, SQL, and Datasets—Spark’s core APIs—through worked examples Dive into Spark’s low-level APIs, RDDs, and execution of SQL and DataFrames Understand how Spark runs on a cluster Debug, monitor, and tune Spark clusters and applications Learn the power of Structured Streaming, Spark’s stream-processing engine Learn how you can apply MLlib to a variety of problems, including classification or recommendation

The Elements of Data Analytic Style


Jeffrey Leek - 2015
    This book is focused on the details of data analysis that sometimes fall through the cracks in traditional statistics classes and textbooks. It is based in part on the authors blog posts, lecture materials, and tutorials. The author is one of the co-developers of the Johns Hopkins Specialization in Data Science the largest data science program in the world that has enrolled more than 1.76 million people. The book is useful as a companion to introductory courses in data science or data analysis. It is also a useful reference tool for people tasked with reading and critiquing data analyses. It is based on the authors popular open-source guides available through his Github account (https://github.com/jtleek). The paper is also available through Leanpub (https://leanpub.com/datastyle), if the book is purchased on that platform you are entitled to lifetime free updates.

Working Effectively with Legacy Code


Michael C. Feathers - 2004
    This book draws on material Michael created for his renowned Object Mentor seminars, techniques Michael has used in mentoring to help hundreds of developers, technical managers, and testers bring their legacy systems under control. The topics covered include: Understanding the mechanics of software change, adding features, fixing bugs, improving design, optimizing performance Getting legacy code into a test harness Writing tests that protect you against introducing new problems Techniques that can be used with any language or platform, with examples in Java, C++, C, and C# Accurately identifying where code changes need to be made Coping with legacy systems that aren't object-oriented Handling applications that don't seem to have any structureThis book also includes a catalog of twenty-four dependency-breaking techniques that help you work with program elements in isolation and make safer changes.

Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment


W. Richard Stevens - 1992
    Rich Stevens describes more than 200 system calls and functions; since he believes the best way to learn code is to read code, a brief example accompanies each description.Building upon information presented in the first 15 chapters, the author offers chapter-long examples teaching you how to create a database library, a PostScript printer driver, a modem dialer, and a program that runs other programs under a pseudo terminal. To make your analysis and understanding of this code even easier, and to allow you to modify it, all of the code in the book is available via UUNET.A 20-page appendix provides detailed function prototypes for all the UNIX, POSIX, and ANSI C functions that are described in the book, and lists the page on which each prototype function is described in detail. Additional tables throughout the text and a thorough index make Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment an invaluable reference tool that all UNIX programmers - beginners to experts - w

The Nature of Code


Daniel Shiffman - 2012
    Readers will progress from building a basic physics engine to creating intelligent moving objects and complex systems, setting the foundation for further experiments in generative design. Subjects covered include forces, trigonometry, fractals, cellular automata, self-organization, and genetic algorithms. The book's examples are written in Processing, an open-source language and development environment built on top of the Java programming language. On the book's website (http://www.natureofcode.com), the examples run in the browser via Processing's JavaScript mode.

Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis


Richard A. Johnson - 1982
    of Wisconsin-Madison) and Wichern (Texas A&M U.) present the newest edition of this college text on the statistical methods for describing and analyzing multivariate data, designed for students who have taken two or more statistics courses. The fifth edition includes the addition of seve

Physically Based Rendering: From Theory to Implementation


Matt Pharr - 2004
    The result is a stunning achievement in graphics education. Through the ideas and software in this book, you will learn to design and employ a full-featured rendering system for creating stunning imagery.This new edition greatly refines its best-selling predecessor by streamlining all obsolete code as well as adding sections on parallel rendering and system design; animating transformations; multispectral rendering; realistic lens systems; blue noise and adaptive sampling patterns and reconstruction; measured BRDFs; and instant global illumination, as well as subsurface and multiple-scattering integrators.These updates reflect the current state-of-the-art technology, and along with the lucid pairing of text and code, ensure the book's leading position as a reference text for those working with images, whether it is for film, video, photography, digital design, visualization, or gaming.

Database System Concepts


Abraham Silberschatz - 1987
    It aims to present these concepts and algorithms in a general setting that is not tied to one particular database system.