Data Mining in 20 Minutes Coffee Book Series

Recommended, with the caveat that it is not a gentle introduction.

A colleague recommended this and I can see why. It does something that few technical books manage: it respects the reader's time. The balance between theory and practice is well judged; neither side dominates. I appreciated the honesty about what the book does not cover — it saved me from expecting things that were not there. Some of the diagrams are dense and I had to reread a few sections, though that may just be me. A good addition to a technical library, as long as you know what you are buying.

Some sections were excellent and others felt like filler.

I bought this on a whim after seeing it mentioned in a forum thread, and I am glad I did. The code samples assume a particular environment, which took a bit of fiddling to get running properly. Some of the material is available elsewhere, but rarely presented this clearly. The chapters on javascript are the strongest — the examples are stripped down but complete, and I could follow along without constant guessing. Fine, but there are stronger books on the same subject if you look around.

A genuinely enjoyable read that also taught me a great deal.

I picked this up after getting stuck on a project and it turned out to be exactly the right book at the right time. The author avoids over-explaining, which keeps the pace up but means you need to pay attention. The chapters on javascript are the strongest — the examples are stripped down but complete, and I could follow along without constant guessing. This is the book I wish had existed when I started working with javascript.