The Little Learner
The Little Learner by Daniel P. Friedman and Anurag Mendhekarby Daniel P. Friedman and Anurag Mendhekar
Ranked 4 of 10 machine learning books by recommenders
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.
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.
8 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 2 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 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
Builds understanding from primitives up
“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.”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Racket v9.2 is now available” “A great place to start is the little learner which holds your hand until you get opinionated”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “Racket v9.2 is now available”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Not suited to complete beginners
“I personally would not recommend it to a young person interested in programming and deep learning”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “The Little Learner: A Straight Line to Deep Learning” “this book however is not a good book for a complete beginner”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “The Little Learner: A Straight Line to Deep Learning”
Other machine learning books people recommend
The four most recommended other machine learning 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch)by Sebastian Raschka | 16 | 0 | 100% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Build an LLM from Scratchby Sebastian Raschka | 8 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | — |
| Python Data Science Handbookby Jake VanderPlas | 8 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
| The Little Learnerby Daniel P. Friedman and Anurag MendhekarThis page | 6 | 2 | 75% | 2 | — | — |
| Probabilistic Machine Learningby Kevin Murphy | 5 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
All 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“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.”
“A great place to start is the little learner which holds your hand until you get opinionated”
“bad error messages make it confusing and inconvenient in practice”
“The Little Learner is a great book.”
“Quick, easy to get through, very easy to understand”
“I personally would not recommend it to a young person interested in programming and deep learning”
“These are classics (and I was really impressed with "The Little Learner")”
“this book however is not a good book for a complete beginner”
“I'm a huge fan of project based learning like the approach taken in this book.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.