alt Hacker News> (based on the table of contents)
So your opinion is based on just reading the table of contents? I always find it disconcerting when someone writes a multi-paragraph commentary on a work they didn't actually read or see.
I understand that you're commenting on the approach more than the contents, but you're pretty dismissive of it without actually reading the details of how they went about things.
You're not quite judging a book by its cover, but you're not that far beyond that.
> you're pretty dismissive of it without actually reading the details of how they went about things...
I wasn't really trying to be dismissive (other than saying that I personally would not recommend it to a young person interested in programming and deep learning). I was mostly trying to start a discussion about the best way to teach/learn this subject. I hoped to attract more knowledgeable commenters (such as yourself). A day later I still stand by my personal opinion that it's probably best to learn the mathematics first, and to use the lingua franca of the domain.
I'd like to add that, from my perspective, this pseudo-critique was a very small part of my comment. I was mostly trying to say "It's very important and difficult to keep early students' interest. Bravo on the novel approach taken in the book. It's much better than what I had as a college student." That might not have been clear in my comment.
> You're not quite judging a book by its cover, but you're not that far beyond that.
Fair. But there wasn't anything else to read in the submission and I was trying to start a curious conversation. Despite my good intentions it was a bad comment.