Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch)
Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch) by Sebastian Raschkaby Sebastian Raschka
Shares rank 38 of 115 programming books by recommenders
Recommended as a practical next step for learning to build reasoning models from scratch, with code designed to run on a regular laptop.
Recommended as a practical next step for learning to build reasoning models from scratch, with code designed to run on a regular laptop.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Author wrote excellent LLM books
“I recommend his book, "Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch)", which is also linked in the article.”
Comment from 20 Jul 2026 in “Controlling Reasoning Effort in LLMs” “as well as his new book on reasoning models that came out recently”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “I were 17, I'd learn how to build LLMs from scratch” “Sebastian is the author of two excellent books related to LLMs”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “Language models for text classification: From bag-of-words to Jev”
Other programming books people recommend
The four most recommended other programming books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crafting Interpretersby Robert Nystrom | 60 | 4 | 94% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Clean Codeby Robert C. Martin | 31 | 87 | 26% | 9 | — | — |
| The Pragmatic Programmerby Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas | 28 | 1 | 97% | 7 | — | Approved |
| How to Design Programsby Matthias Felleisen and Robert Bruce Findler and Matthew Flatt and Shriram Krishnamurthi | 18 | 2 | 90% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch)by Sebastian RaschkaThis page | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
All 6 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“that was a great second step”
“the code examples have been carefully designed to run efficiently on a regular laptop”
“Sebastian is the author of two excellent books related to LLMs”
“as well as his new book on reasoning models that came out recently”
“I recommend his book, "Build a Reasoning Model (From Scratch)", which is also linked in the article.”
“i am not really interested in building part and just want to understand theory and practice”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.