[srean]

I am familiar with the material of linear algebra but haven't read his books. Could someone who has absorbed linear algebra from different sources and familiar with Strang's books comment on what's good and bad and unique about them.

In my time I had picked LA from Ben Noble, Halmos and Axler and the computation side of things from Golub & van Loan.

[mturmon]

I like your bibliography!

Ben Noble's book was my entry to LA. I was an undergraduate and involved in a research activity that demanded a lot of knowledge of the eigenvalue problem. The concrete approach in that book helped a lot.

It was only later on that I took a class based on G&vL (implementing a bunch of basic LA factorizations in Matlab), and in my spare time read Halmos's book. I understand the coordinate-free algebraic approach, but I work on applications and that viewpoint has not stuck with me. The stuff on numerical accuracy in GvL really did stick, OTOH.

From the comments here, and Strang's book's table of contents, I gather that his book (which has a lot of fans) has a concrete geometric approach.

[mturmon]

Self-reply: Here's a comparative review of Noble+Daniel vs. Strang: https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/271586/1-s2.0-S002437950...

[srean]

Hey thanks. I am quite surprised to meet a fellow Nobler. I thought I was the only one. I self studied the material and no one in my social circle had read it from Noble.

[T-zex]

I'm still a beginner and I think Strang's Linear algebra books are more like a supplement material to his lectures. If you need to build a solid theoretical foundation of linear algebra you'd need to consider other resources too.

Having said that, he is explaining many things really well and is helping a lot to build intuition. He is always cautious presenting things that are computationally inefficient and suggests the alternatives.

Exercises are too hard for me personally. I'd prefer a more laborious set of exercises helping to cement the material, (as in calculus or usual algebra) and then have one or two problem solving puzzles at the end.

[srean]

So the focus is on different recipes to cook a matrix with ? Different operations one can do on a matrix ?

I hope its not just that, that would be very limiting considering what linear algebra is about and capable of.

[T-zex]

No, his books are not recipes. The thing I'm struggling to communicate here is that he's got a more pragmatic style compared to other text books. The material he presents is complete and and he is doing great job making it approachable for non mathematicians.

His books usually expand on the subjects he presents at his online lectures. I see them as advanced lecture notes.

[srean]

No worries, not your fault, its really on me (to read the books). Its not really fair of me to ask for a comprehensive description in comments. Thanks for your comments anyhow.

[mesaframe]

I read his book and I would say his book work in complement with his lectures. It is not good enough on it's own.