r/learnmachinelearning • u/Aljariri0 • Feb 14 '26

Help Statistical Learning Or Machine Learning first?

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ISLP book, I finished the first 2 chapters, but this book is not easy, and I want some guys to study this book together. Any tips to study this book?

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u/maifee Feb 14 '26

Probability and statistics

When you can do all the maths then we will do machine learning. I didn't follow this path, and I kind of regret it.

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u/Healthy-Educator-267 Feb 14 '26

I did all the math; it doesn’t help all that much. What matters more is the knowledge of deploying systems, soft skills, good engineering practices

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u/just_a_tony_joe Feb 14 '26

Disagree, both are important. How can I trust you know what you are doing if you fail to understand the underlying statistics that the models are based on? It's a long road but gathering technical and non technical skills is fundamental to developing a robust skillset in this field. I'd recommend you keep at the ISLP book it is well written.

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u/Fearless-Big-9626 Feb 16 '26

Yes, both are important. In the beginning or the fundamentals, I will prefer the statistics first.

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u/hop_kins Feb 16 '26

Agreed. Coding is way more important than knowing how to compute the expected value of a coin flip.

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u/underappreciatedduck Feb 14 '26

Assuming someone has base knowledge of math and compsci, what would you recommend as path then? A lot of stuff I found on here (though admittedly limited in search time) is years old. Was wondering where you'd say someone with an IT background should hop in?

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u/Karl_mstr Feb 15 '26

I just think the order doesn't matter as long you know about them, stop regretting not learning A before B when you need to learn A, B, C...

And what it might be useful will be drived by where you choose to work, so adapt as you see.

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u/Aljariri0 Feb 14 '26

why bro?

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u/gocurl Feb 14 '26

100% agree

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u/maifee Feb 14 '26

Also strong foundation of calculus

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u/Vaasan_not_n0t_5 Feb 14 '26

Can you please elaborate on this and suggest the resources to do it....

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u/Ibra_63 Feb 14 '26

Any books to suggest ?