[dchuk]

I just love the way this guy writes. His book, Data Smart, is hands down the most approachable intro to data science you could ever possibly read if you don't have the sufficient math background to dive into full on textbooks. And it's hilarious too.

[strictnein]

I have mixed feelings about that book. I enjoyed his writing style and humor, but the amount of beating on Excel he has to do to manipulate all that data hurts my head. I kept thinking of how much easier it would be to do with code.

Maybe it's just not a good book for developers? shrug I would love to have a copy of that book that doesn't use Excel.

[dchuk]

I share your same yearning for a code equivalent of the book. However, I think writing the book using only Excel was a smart move on his part, simply because:

1) Excel is "visual" in the sense that you can watch the data change as you tweak things. There is no command line or program to execute, it's all happening live

2) For programmers, there's no "well I'm a python guy and this book is written in Java so it's not for me." None of us as coders really depend on Excel for writing code (basically) so it's kind of a way to take the technology decisions out of the equation. It's just the techniques.

All that being said, it's not trivial to port the logic of a spreadsheet over to code, and I think if anything that would make a great followup book.

[strictnein]

I agree with both your points. For #2, the only decent option may to make the book more focused on R, instead of just chapter 10.

[jmulho]

Write it!

[cwyers]

It looks like an interesting book. Anyone have experience with the ebook version? Does it hold up with the illustrations, or should I hold out for a hardcopy?

[dchuk]

I have the ebook version, it's fine if you're ok with ebooks for this sort of stuff.

[blumkvist]

Can you recommend some other books that are good introduction to analytics/data science? I often get asked for recommendations, but can't seem to find something suitable for beginners.

Dickrolls to be avoided if possible, but secretly kinda wishing...

[dchuk]

I unfortunately don't know too many others. I have this book as well: http://www.amazon.com/Machine-Learning-Science-Algorithms-Se... and because I'm so far removed from any academic math study now in my life, by about page 3 I was lost.

My plan is to dive into Linear Algebra and Statistics book and courses first before I head into ML again.

[jaynos]

Doing Data Science is a pretty good intro. http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Data-Science-Straight-Frontline/...

[lstamour]

More on the presentation of data, but I like Stephen Few's work...