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A review by tim_ohearn
Natural Language Processing with Python: Analyzing Text with the Natural Language Toolkit by Ewan Klein, Edward Loper, Steven Bird
5.0
This subject fascinates me and I worked through this book front to back as quickly as I could. This is a complicated topic, and though the earlier chapters can inform shallow solutions that will certainly impress, the problem space is vast. There are a few reviews out there claiming that the book is "outdated"--please do not let that stop you from picking it up. It's an excellent in-depth manual for Python NLP practitioners
Warning: if you haven't been exposed to a typical CS undergrad course load, the curve in the mid-late chapters will be steep for independent learners. Classes you'll ideally have taken to get the most out of this book: Discrete Structures (notation), Data Structures & Algorithms, Intro to Machine Learning, Programming Languages / Compilers (grammars). Also, spending an hour or two reviewing basic English grammar and language constructs will help.
You should also bring with you several imagined use cases. In the later chapters, the material can get pretty dense, and when I encountered methods that didn't obviously apply to my imagined use cases, it was much more difficult (I say--nearly impossible at first read) to pick up some of the more abstract concepts.
Warning: if you haven't been exposed to a typical CS undergrad course load, the curve in the mid-late chapters will be steep for independent learners. Classes you'll ideally have taken to get the most out of this book: Discrete Structures (notation), Data Structures & Algorithms, Intro to Machine Learning, Programming Languages / Compilers (grammars). Also, spending an hour or two reviewing basic English grammar and language constructs will help.
You should also bring with you several imagined use cases. In the later chapters, the material can get pretty dense, and when I encountered methods that didn't obviously apply to my imagined use cases, it was much more difficult (I say--nearly impossible at first read) to pick up some of the more abstract concepts.