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Visualizing Data is available (Read 2606 times)
heyotwell
Visualizing Data is available
Jan 2nd, 2008, 10:39pm  
Amazon still thinks Ben's new book isn't released, but they sent me my preordered copy on 12/26. Weird.

I think this is one of the best design+coding books I've ever read, and I'm a big fan of that genre. Ben's struck just the right (for me) level of technical and design explanations. He's just as likely to pause to explain the difference between Java's int and Integer as he is to talk about why you should use an em-dash and non-lining numerals in particular cases. As a designer first, I am really really impressed by how much care he takes here to explain specific visual choices, especially when he's making very subtle changes (like using RGB vs HSB color spaces).

The book takes Ben's PhD dissertation and applies its method to a few projects, and it goes pretty deeply into issues of finding and cleaning up data from different kinds of sources. It's actually really great that he largely avoids working with data in nice, clean, structured formats and focuses on grappling with the nasty, bizarre data that's actually available in the real world.

Great job, Ben!
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mflux
Re: Visualizing Data is available
Reply #1 - Jan 4th, 2008, 2:22am  
Looks like we need to order one for our office. Thanks for the heads-up!

~M
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fluxhavoc  
adm
Re: Visualizing Data is available
Reply #2 - Jan 4th, 2008, 9:51pm  
no... we got it before we all left for vacation, mike. look around you!

;p
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aaron4281  
mflux
Re: Visualizing Data is available
Reply #3 - Jan 7th, 2008, 10:35am  
How can you blame me when data visualization is so addicting and attention sapping????
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fluxhavoc  
fry
Re: Visualizing Data is available
Reply #4 - Jan 15th, 2008, 7:11pm  
thanks for the kind words, andrew... you've completely picked up on my intent with the book, so at least i know that one person got it. Wink
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Johan_Wastring
Re: Visualizing Data is available
Reply #5 - Feb 15th, 2008, 11:55pm  
I think you can add a couple more to the list of people who loves this book.
I am especially thankful for the good and simple explanation of the different stages of the main process, i.e. the parse, filter etc. These have seem very mystical to me prior to this book. I read somewhere that Perl was used in Parse, maybe in your OIV thesis, not sure, but was relieved to find that it can (in some cases?) be done a bit easier. Being a graphic designer turning code-thinker I find it inspiring, challenging, yet simple and demystifying.
Great things will come out of this, I am sure.
Thanks. Again Smiley
/Johan
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