OK, you're tempted to buy MacKay's book, but you're not sure whether it's the best deal around?
Let's compare it with another textbook with a similar sales rank.
In terms of user-friendliness, MacKay's text has the edge when it comes to its thorough index, the rich use of figures, the provision of free software for the use of the reader, and the profusion of examples and exercises, many with worked solutions.
A strong selling point for MacKay's book is its free availability for online viewing. Unlike Rowling, who is notoriously secretive about her textbooks before they are published, MacKay made his entire book available online while it was a work in progress.
A possible weakness of MacKay's product is that it is only available in hardback. Native speakers of Latin may also prefer Rowling's text, since a full translation into Latin is now available.
The issue that must clinch the choice, however, is availability. Our reviewer tried to purchase both texts from Barnes and Noble on Mon 5/1/04, and found that the Rowling text is not available.1
In conclusion, we can give a cautious recommendation of Harry Potter only to speakers of Welsh and Latin; for everyone else, we recommend Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms.
Footnotes
[1] Rowling's text has
however been translated into American, and released under a different title.
