When comparing Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction vs A First Encounter with Machine Learning, 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 9th while A First Encounter with Machine Learning is ranked 23rd. The most important reason people chose Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction is:
Written to cover both the subject matter and theory.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
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 Introduces Machine Learning in an easy to understand manner
Designed to be an introductory course to the field that's simple to understand and requires little technical knowledge.
Pro Free
Available as a free pdf.
Cons
Con Uses vague terms
Supplementary resources that have formalized the terms used in this book might be needed to fully understand everything.