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Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction vs Hacker's guide to Neural Networks (by Andrej Karpathy)

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When comparing Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction vs Hacker's guide to Neural Networks (by Andrej Karpathy), the Slant community recommends Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction for most people. In the question“What are the best resources to learn Machine Learning?” Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction is ranked 5th while Hacker's guide to Neural Networks (by Andrej Karpathy) is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction is:

Written to cover both the subject matter and theory.

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Common Questions

What are the best resources to learn Machine Learning?

Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction

Hacker's guide to Neural Networks (by Andrej Karpathy)

Pros

Pro
Has good balance between technical and non-technical information

Written to cover both the subject matter and theory.

Pro
Covers 3 essential reinforcement learning approaches

The second part of the book covers Dynamic Programming, Monte Carlo Methods and Temporal Difference Learning learning methods. They're presented in an interesting way and explained through various examples.

Pro
Approachable

Pro
Offers lots of real world examples

Pro
Free

Available online for free.

Pro
Explanation of theories are easy to understand

All theory introduced in this guide is nicely explained and backed up with concrete, straightforward examples that are easy to understand. The math-heavy parts are nicely illustrated with code, and the author walks you through each step of the process gently.

Pro
Great for programmers looking to get into machine learning

This guide assumes that the reader has some experience with programming and dives straight into the subject matter. It doesn't waste time on non-essentials, and it's geared toward readers looking to understand the building blocks of machine learning from the ground up.

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Cons

Con
Uses vague terms

Supplementary resources that have formalized the terms used in this book might be needed to fully understand everything.

Con
Not suitable for beginners with no programming experience

If you're unfamiliar with programming, you might feel lost. This guide assumes the reader has some background in programming and dives straight into code.