
The LION Way: Machine Learning and Intelligent Optimization [pdf] - simon_acca
http://intelligent-optimization.org/LIONbook/lionbook_3v0.pdf
======
simon_acca
Shoutout to my college professor who just made his machine learning book free!

I particularly like the book in that it explains the pure computer science and
mathematical ideas behind machine learning, model building and validation,
without relying on any particular software package. If you are looking for a
book that conveys knowledge rather than a glorified tutorial on machine
learning, this is it.

Each chapter is written with incremental difficulty, so that one can read up
until (hopefully a bit beyond) his/her maths comfort zone.

The book is also entertaining, if anything just read the first paragraph of
each chapter and look at the first illustrations!

Additional info here: [http://intelligent-
optimization.org/LIONbook](http://intelligent-optimization.org/LIONbook)

~~~
ralfd
Speaking of: Does anyone know a good glorified tutorial on machine learning?

------
RichardW2
I am sorry, but I really do not like this style of naming and self-
advertising. Is this common in ML?

"LION is a complex array of mechanisms, like the engine in a car, but the user
(driver) does not need to know the inner workings of the engine in order to
realize its tremendous benefits. LION’s adoption will create a prairie fire of
innovation which will reach most businesses in the next decades."

1\. Why is it called LION? There is no reference to a lion anywhere in the
introduction. Just because the (real) title contains the letters to form lion
is (in my opinion) not good enough (machine Learning plus Intelligent
OptimizatioN). I hoped we were done with this style 5 years ago.

2\. Even before trying to attempt to explain exactely what LION is, we have
this car engine analogy. Why not explaining what it is so that I do understang
what you are talking about. This just feels like an attempt to obscure
complexity. And in (some bad papers) this is a sign that the authors did not
fully grasp the matter and can hence not summarize it.

3\. Why this bold claim that this will change innovation and business? If the
book holds what it promises it will do that on its own.

To be fair, I haven't read the book but will probably do it. And it might be
awesome. But these three things raise red flags for me. I read a lot of papers
during my PhD and these are three indicators for bad papers. And the authors
of those papers were PhD students will oversell there stuff anyways. But this
is a book. Please do not do that...

[EDIT] Typo

------
vi2837
Thanks!

------
bob_theslob646
If he is giving this away for free, how worthwhile is it?

Sorry to be skeptical, but free doesn't always equal great quality.(excluding
open source software)

~~~
mindcrime
How is "free" relevant here? The underlying truth is that _price_ in general
is not necessarily correlated with quality. That would be true if the book
were free, or if it cost $20.00, $200.00 or $2,000.00.

IOW:

 _If he is selling this for $200.00, how worthwhile is it? Sorry to be
skeptical, but expensive doesn 't always equal great quality._

