Peter Bruce

For context, I'm not a data scientist, but a visualization programmer who works with some and was looking for a book to get acquainted with some background material.

The first four chapters on Exploratory Data Analysis, Data and Sampling Distributions, Statistical Experiments and Significance Testing, and Regression and Prediction, respectively, were relatively straightforward and I was able to follow them fairly well. Most of the sections contain "Key Ideas" and "Key Terms" call-outs that I found quite helpful. I was bemused at the number of topics discussed only to be told, "but data scientists don't worry about this."

The final chapters on Classification, Statistical Machine Learning, and Unsupervised Learning felt like jumping into the deep end of the pool. I feel like I'd need a few more semesters of statistics before I was really comfortable with some of this stuff.

The R code snippets are fine, but jump straight to the author's github site and just download the examples.… (mehr)

This work has been substantially improved and expanded over the years, with this new edition having more than twice as many pages as the original published over 20 years ago. It sets out in superb detail and with excellent colour photographs all the hazards of the “back of the Wight” as the southern shore of the island is known. The photographs, many of them from the air, show the features at low spring tides and coastal views at chart datum. For anyone contemplating a round-the-island voyage and, taken with its companion volumes Solent Hazards and Solent Tides (also both by Peter Bruce), it certainly should be considered essential reading.

PJN… (mehr)