I should mention - the `fastbook` repo is not just a draft - it's the full book in basically the final version (except it's in Jupyter Notebook format).
I do recommend getting the book to support authors who've put one of the best Deep Learning content (completely for beginners) for Free of Cost. I know that's the open source culture but someone doing it with education seems highly appreciable to me!
Honestly we don't get much of a cut, so don't worry about it too much either way. Although it's nice to support O'Reilly, since they were kind enough to let us make it all available for free.
Frankly though, there are much more important areas right now that could really use some extra money, so I'd rather see folks donate to a good cause, if they don't actually need the paper or kindle book... :)
I've been giving my teaching stipend from university to the Fred Hollow Foundation: https://www.hollows.org/ . They can give sight back to many people that are blind, for around US$25.
Thank you! This is such a great service to the community, really, all of it.
While you're here---do you have advice on the course vs the book? I'm a person who really prefers to learn via writing rather than via video, but if there's stuff in the course that people who use the book can't really experience...
Use both. The book will encourage you to work through the notebooks. You can watch the first video and see if it adds anything for you - if it doesn't, skip the rest.
They cover basically the same material. (Except that the course covers only half the book - the rest is planned for a part 2 course later.)
https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Learning-Coders-fastai-PyTorch/d...
that said: fast.ai also released a draft of the book available here (including the notebooks) https://github.com/fastai/fastbook
edit: if you can afford it, getting the book is a great way to support the authors