Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms
Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms by David MacKayby David MacKay
Shares rank 15 of 28 computer science textbooks by recommenders
Recommended as the standard textbook on information theory for machine learning, praised for presenting dense topics in an interesting and digestible way.
Recommended as the standard textbook on information theory for machine learning, praised for presenting dense topics in an interesting and digestible way.
4 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 4
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 2 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: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 4 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 2 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not 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
Standard textbook for ML information theory
“it's worth checking out the late David MacKay's 2003 textbook Information Theory, Inference & Learning Algorithms”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “Can gzip be a language model?” “he wrote the textbook on information theory for the ML community”
Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “Sustainable energy without the hot air (2008)” Interesting and digestible presentation of topics
“That book significantly decreased my appreciation of our statistics professor @uni, because it presented the same topics in a much more interesting and digestible way.”
Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “Sustainable energy without the hot air (2008)” Frequently recommended to others
“I recommend every where I get a chance”
Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “Six (and a half) intuitions for KL divergence”
Other computer science textbooks people recommend
The four most recommended other computer science textbooks, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programsby Abelson and Sussman | 55 | 5 | 92% | 12 | — | Approved |
| The Art of Computer Programmingby Donald E. Knuth | 28 | 6 | 82% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programsby Abelson and Sussman | 12 | 0 | 100% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Quantum Computation and Quantum Informationby Nielsen and Chuang | 12 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithmsby David MacKayThis page | 4 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
What people said
All 4 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“he wrote the textbook on information theory for the ML community”
“That book significantly decreased my appreciation of our statistics professor @uni, because it presented the same topics in a much more interesting and digestible way.”
“it's worth checking out the late David MacKay's 2003 textbook Information Theory, Inference & Learning Algorithms”
“I recommend every where I get a chance”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.