First, I want to thank Dr. Don Syme (@dsyme) and everyone in the product team who brought F# to the world and made a fantastic integration with Visual Studio. I also want to thank Professor Andrew Ng (@AndrewYNg). I first learned about machine learning from his MOOC on machine learning at Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning).
This book couldn't have seen the light of day without a few people: my acquisition editor, Ms. Harsha Bharwani, who persuaded me to work on this book; and my development editor, Ms. Athira Laji, who tolerated many delays in the delivery schedule but kept the bar high and got me going. She is one of the most compassionate development editors I have ever worked with. Thank you mam! I have been fortunate to have a couple of very educated reviewers on board: Mr. David Stephens (the PM of the F# programming language) (@NumberByColors) and Ms. Alena Dzenisenka (@lenadroid). The book uses several open source frameworks and F#. So, thanks to all the people who have contributed to these projects. I also want to say a huge thank you to Dr. Ralf Herbrich (@rherbrich), the director of machine learning science at Amazon, Berlin, for kindly writing a foreword for the book.
Last but not least, I must say that I am very fortunate to have a very loving family, who always stood by me whenever I needed support. My wife, Mou, made sure that I had enough time to write the chapters. We couldn't go out on weekends. I promise to make up for all the missed family time. Thank you sweetheart! My son, Sohan, has been my inspiration. His enthusiasm makes me feel happy. Love you son. I hope when he grows up, machine learning will be more mainstream and will have become far more commonplace in the programming ecosystem than it is now. My dad, Subrata, always inspired me to learn more about mathematics. I realized how important mathematics is in programming while writing this book. My mom, Dipali, taught me mathematics in my early years and what I know today about mathematics is deeply rooted in her teachings. I love you all!
I am thankful to God for giving me the strength to dream big and fight my nightmares.
