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Book review: Head First Statistics vs. The Manga Guide to Statistics

blog.asymptotic.co.uk

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Re: Book review: Head First Statistics vs. The Manga Guide to Statistics

#2

Post by phakding »

I have seen head first books being recommend by many. The only one I ever read half way though was one on design patterns and I regretted it. When I am learning something new, I want every sentence to be information heavy. So I could learn much more efficiently. Head first books just drag on and on with jokes, unnecessary conversations, cartoons and stuff. I literally gave up and Google searched each design patterns.

All my engineers books were pretty dry and to the point.

Re: Book review: Head First Statistics vs. The Manga Guide to Statistics

#4

Post by rossdavidh »

"statistics is something of a blind spot for programmers, who tend to think of themselves as numerically proficient but often dismiss statistics as unimportant “stamp collecting” for people who can’t do “real maths”" ...I've literally never heard anything like this from any programmer (or anyone else, actually). Has anyone else heard a programmer express such an attitude towards statistics? Mostly I've heard people say that statistics is hard, or counter-intuitive.

Re: Book review: Head First Statistics vs. The Manga Guide to Statistics

#5

Post by riffraff »

phakding wrote: post #2

I have seen head first books being recommend by many. The only one I ever read half way though was one on design patterns and I regretted it. When I am learning something new, I want every sentence to be information heavy. So I could learn much more efficiently. Head first books just drag on and on with jokes, unnecessary conversations, cartoons and stuff. I literally gave up and Google searched each design patterns.…

There is a balance to strike, I'd say. I recall Norvig's Artificial Intelligence as a great text which also had some pretty funny jokes (mostly relegated to footnotes, IIRC)

Re: Book review: Head First Statistics vs. The Manga Guide to Statistics

#6

Post by SomeHacker44 »

I wish high school would put statistics in the primary math curriculum, even over (pre) calculus. I feel a solid understanding of statistics and their occasional counter intuitive nature, and especially how to properly interpret things and significance measures would be enormously valuable to citizens of this modern information age.

Re: Book review: Head First Statistics vs. The Manga Guide to Statistics

#7

Post by kdbg »

phakding wrote: post #2

I have seen head first books being recommend by many. The only one I ever read half way though was one on design patterns and I regretted it. When I am learning something new, I want every sentence to be information heavy. So I could learn much more efficiently. Head first books just drag on and on with jokes, unnecessary conversations, cartoons and stuff. I literally gave up and Google searched each design patterns.…

I recommend the head first books pretty frequently. Never alone though, I've found them to be somewhat divisive. Some people learn well with that more casual writing style, some find it very annoying.

So while I recommend people try the head first series, I always have an alternative recommendation that is more seriously written. I've had allot of success with pre/early teens learning with the head first books.

Re: Book review: Head First Statistics vs. The Manga Guide to Statistics

#9

Post by mettamage »

Don't forget The Manga Guide to Databases! I needed to have a good working to do some standard CRUD database things with SQL. The Manga Guide to Databases was the most fun and educational read I have ever had. It covered enough skills for me to create whatever CRUD feature my employer needed.
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