OT: excellent book on information theory

[Juho Schultz]

Anton Vredegoor wrote:
> 
> Returning to the original book, why did they write a lot of it (at
> least the first few pages until I gave up, after having trouble
> understanding formulas about concepts I have no such trouble with when
> framed in less jargonized from) in unintelligible mathemathical
> notation when there's Python?
> 

Because the intended audience is probably reads formulas better than
they read Python. The 1st sentence of the Introduction: "This book is 
aimed at senior undergraduates and graduate students in Engineering, 
Science, Mathematics and Computing".

Last month I spent about an hour trying to explain why
a*2.5e-8 = x
raises a SyntaxError and why it should be written
x = a*2.5e-8
The guy who wrote the 1st line has MSc in Physics from Cambridge (UK).
In mathematics, there is no difference between the two lines.

> I prefer a nice Python function over some strange latech symbols. If
> not Python there's always pseudo code or good old natural language.
> Don't tell me those math formulas are what it 'really' is, or even that
> it's more precise that way. The old trick of 'but there are some things
> that cannot be expressed in any other way than by using formulas'
> doesn't get one many optimization points in my world.
> 
> Anton
>