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Ask HN: Technical Summer Reading List

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Re: Ask HN: Technical Summer Reading List

#61

Post by benrbray »

wheelinsupial wrote: post #59
benrbray wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure "Convex Optimization" by B&V is a good self-study book. I really struggled with it as student, and I struggled to teach with it as a TA. It's one of those "Step 2. Draw the Rest of the Owl!" books. Great as a reference manual, but not great pedagogically. It's very complete and I would struggle to name anything better, though. Mostly, I learned convex analysis by scouring Google for lecture notes written…

How is the notation and standards in convex optimization? I took a course linear programming out of Vanderbei's book and it seemed any time I used google to find notes that everyone used slightly different notation or methods. For example, Vanderbei used the dictionaries and others used the tableau.

It's quite a mess, since discrete optimization is quite an old topic used by many different fields (engineering, statistics, sciences, math) each with their own notation/terminology. One of the merits of the B&V book is the relatively clear/precise notation, and they've made an effort to disambiguate. That's why it's so well-regarded as reference material.

Re: Ask HN: Technical Summer Reading List

#62

Post by darawk »

Attempting to self study statistics and econometrics in a serious way. I just finished Casella and Berger's "Statistical Inference". I'm about halfway through Shumway and Stoffer's "Time Series Analysis", but then next on the list, in the order I tend to read them:

  - Theory of Point Estimation Casella/Lehmann

  - Bayesian Data Analysis 3rd ed.

  - Convex Optimization - Boyd

  - Econometrics - Hayashi

  - New Introduction to Multiple Time Series Analysis

  - Elements of Statistical Learning

  - Machine Learning: A probabilistic perspective
There's a fair amount of overlap between these books, so it's not quite as much as it seems. But i'm hoping to make it through at least a chapter a week this year, which should get me most of the way through them. We'll see how it goes.

Re: Ask HN: Technical Summer Reading List

#63

Post by sigjuice »

exdsq wrote: post #36
nindalf wrote: post #3

I'm planning to read - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (SICP). A classic. - Crafting Interpreters. Intro to compilers for me. - Deep Learning for Coders with Fastai and PyTorch. There's some other books in there too, but I'd be really happy if I finished these. I don't have a degree in CS, and most of what I know is self taught. My goal here is to fill in gaps in my knowledge as best I can.

SICP takes _ages_. I'm working through it myself but have realised it's going to be a background project for the next year or so. No idea how MIT freshman do it so quickly!

Indeed. SICP does take ages. I only worked through the first three chapters and it took me a year. I skipped a handful of problems that simply didn't interest me enough. This was several years ago and I hope to pick up from where I left off some day :/

Re: Ask HN: Technical Summer Reading List

#64

Post by someearth »

qntty wrote: post #40
someearth wrote: post #27

Quran for sure! The best ever book that you *must* read! See: https://quran.com/ (With Translations) https://tafsir.app/ (ARABIC)

Does anybody just read the Quran? I listened to some comparative religion lectures by Huston Smith where he said basically it's impossible to just read. He tried it and didn't understand it. It's a book that is very hard to get into without an existing knowledge of Islam that comes from somewhere other than reading the Quran. Eventually he began to understand it after a lot of background reading from the Sufis.

An Atheists Perspective ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AvepssBwzY

Re: Ask HN: Technical Summer Reading List

#65

Post by someearth »

exdsq wrote: post #38
someearth wrote: post #27

Quran for sure! The best ever book that you *must* read! See: https://quran.com/ (With Translations) https://tafsir.app/ (ARABIC)

I appreciate learning other cultures, but why the Quran? Seems heavy - why not some sociology textbook on Islamic culture?

"... Quran presents life as more; like it uses a symbol - like a book ..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdzbzkJ1mjg

Re: Ask HN: Technical Summer Reading List

#66

Post by someearth »

someearth wrote: post #64
qntty wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anybody just read the Quran? I listened to some comparative religion lectures by Huston Smith where he said basically it's impossible to just read. He tried it and didn't understand it. It's a book that is very hard to get into without an existing knowledge of Islam that comes from somewhere other than reading the Quran. Eventually he began to understand it after a lot of background reading from the Sufis.

An Atheists Perspective ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AvepssBwzY

Reading the Quran ... from "The Greatest Lier in History" ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n527uhH6RWE
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