# The Little Learner by Daniel P. Friedman and Anurag Mendhekar

6 Hacker News commenters recommended The Little Learner by Daniel P. Friedman and Anurag Mendhekar and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Quick, easy, project-based introduction to deep learning that builds from primitives up; critics say it is not a good first book for complete beginners.

## Why people recommend it

- Builds understanding from primitives up (2 comments): "A great place to start is the little learner which holds your hand until you get opinionated about what the underlying primitives should look like." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48343168)) "A great place to start is the little learner which holds your hand until you get opinionated" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48342676))

## What people warn about

- Not suited to complete beginners (2 comments): "I personally would not recommend it to a young person interested in programming and deep learning" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46975695)) "this book however is not a good book for a complete beginner" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46968948))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch) by Sebastian Raschka](https://hackerapproved.com/p/build-a-large-language-model.md): 16 recommend
- [Build an LLM from Scratch by Sebastian Raschka](https://hackerapproved.com/p/build-an-llm-from-scratch.md): 8 recommend
- [Python Data Science Handbook by Jake VanderPlas](https://hackerapproved.com/p/python-data-science-handbook.md): 8 recommend
- [Probabilistic Machine Learning by Kevin Murphy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/probabilistic-machine-learning.md): 5 recommend
- [The Welch Labs Illustrated Guide to AI by Welch Labs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/welch-labs-illustrated-guide-to-ai.md): 5 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=The+Little+Learner+by+Friedman+and+Felleisen&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "The Little Learner by Daniel P. Friedman and Anurag Mendhekar", https://hackerapproved.com/p/little-learner/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).