Mike Staszel

I recently finished reading Data Science from Scratch by Joel Grus. This book is a great introduction to data science concepts. It uses real code to demonstrate complex Python, data analytics, data science, and machine learning concepts. I’m really glad I picked up this book as the first book I’ve read about machine learning. There was a great combination of mathematics, statistics, and real applications of machine learning algorithms. The book starts out with a quick introduction to Python, followed by an in-depth review of all the math you need for the code to make sense.

If you really want to get into the details of Python and learn about how the language was built and how some of its internals are implemented, Fluent Python is the book for you. It’s a great book to refresh your knowledge of coroutines, asyncio, and other Python goodies.

I just finished reading “Hello, Startup” by Yevgeniy Brikman, a book written for programmers about starting a startup. All the basics are covered, including hiring, teamwork, startup culture, and development methodology while scaling a startup. It’s a nice quick read (I skimmed through the chapters about development, programming, databases, and other technical chapters, but I found the other content to be a great place to start learning about what it takes to build a startup.