I'm over halfway done with the book I've been writing. I just submitted chapter 5. I've written all the code for chapter 6 and am currently writing up the explanations and walk-throughs now for that chapter. A few weeks ago, I got permission to put up the code for the book on my github here:
https://github.com/nfmcclure/tensorflow_cookbook .
It seemed kind of flat to just put up the python scripts for each recipe, so I'm trying to add documentation with graphs to explain why and what each chapter and section is about. I don't want to overstep my book and provide all information on the github, but I do want to provide enough so that the scripts are readable and show that they have a point to understanding Tensorflow and the machine learning algorithms.
Also, a few weeks ago, my editor suggested a cover picture for the book. I noticed that the style of cover pictures for this publishing company for technical books is just a really nice random picture. Most technical books don't really have a point to the cover pictures, in fact, 'O'Reilly' is famous for having random pencil drawings of animals on their technical books. Here is the cover for my book:
Also, as a really interesting side note, my publisher offered to enroll the book into a new program that they offer. The book is available NOW, for full price, and you can get updates as I write it. If you are interested in that deal, the link is here:
https://www.packtpub.com/big-data-and-business-intelligence/tensorflow-machine-learning-cookbook
The writing has been going well. Writing the chapter on support vector machines was much harder than I expected. While I studied SVMs in school, actually writing code and understanding how to implement different kernels via matrix multiplication in Tensorflow code was quite frustrating, but very rewarding when it finally worked.
I'm slightly worried about the rest of the book, as it is on a fairly new subject to me and I'm currently only one chapter ahead of the deadlines.
Back to writing...
I just ordered this book on Packt Pub Ebook, but only got 179 out of 401 pages. What's going on?
Hi, As you noticed, you can order the book as it's being written. That means that you will only get the parts of the book that have been written, submitted, and reviewed as a first draft. I just submitted the final chapters last week. Please check back with your Packt account in a few weeks and you will see more chapters have been added. Don't worry, you'll get the book updates (and eventually the final edited/reviewed book) for free.
Also, in the meantime, you can check out the code for free here:
https://github.com/nfmcclure/tensorflow_cookbook
Hi Nick,
Thanks for your prompt reply!
I bought your book precisely because (1) I found the github repo via googling "tensorflow cookbook" and (2) wanted to pay for the explanations of the NLP, CNN, and RNN code. Unfortunately, what Packt has sent me stops at chapter 6, missing out on 7, 8, and 9. Is there a way I can get a draft? (I can send you my packt pub receipt as proof of purchase).
Thanks!
That shouldn't be a problem! Contact me at nfmcclure at gmail dot com . I'll see if I can zip up those chapters and send them off. Thanks for purchasing the book!
On the off chance any potential customers are deciding whether to buy the book:
Nick's amazing.
I have now received the chapters that (1) have been written and (2) not released by packt pub yet.
Hi Nick,
I like your book so much but i met a problem when i read topic "Implementing Lasso and Ridge Regression". About Lasso, you explained that: "...we will use a continuous approximation to a step function, called the continuous heavy step function..." and I didn't understand about which was called 'the continuous heavy step function' in this context. Can you explain more about recipe of Lasso? Thanks.