Reviews for Natural Language Processing with Python

1. Pragmatic text processing - if there is such a thing!

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, October 12st, 2009

   Natural Language Processing with Python has to have one of the most intimidating pre-ambles of any book I've picked up. Not only does it set out to cover Natural Language Processing, using the author's own Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) as the teaching tool, but also teach the basics of Python and good programming techniques. After reading this I put the book aside for a day while I lay down in a darkened room to gather my strength!
   Having now worked my way through the book, lets take a look at how well it stands up to it's claims. Bad news first. The coverage of Python really didn't work for me, though I admit that this may be due to my background as a procedural rather than object oriented programmer. Without additional Python resources I was seriously struggling so if you are a complete Python and OO neophyte like me then I would strongly suggest working through either a good Python book or one of the many online tutorials before you attempt to tackle Natural Language Processing with Python. The other main problem was the amount of information that the book tries to cover. I found it helpful to scan read the book to get it into some sort of order in my mind before reading it any depth.
   
   If I do have any other criticism of Natural Language Processing with Python, it's probably that it could probably be more accurately titled something like "Natural Language Toolkit: The Missing Manual".
   
   Right that's the bad news out of the way, now for the good. The actual coverage of NLTK and, to a slightly lesser degree, natural language processing is excellent. The theme of the book is very pragmatic and task centred, so if you have a specific problem in mind which you feel needs a natural language approach then this book could well be the answer to your prayers. On the other hand if you are looking for a more theoretical overview of the subject you may be slightly disappointed. Natural Language Processing with Python certainly covers pretty much all the bases from comparatively simple statistical analysis, through context free grammar parsing and text classification all the way to discourse analysis. OK, some may complain that it's a bit code heavy and theory light but, when you consider that pretty much every chapter in the book has had several large tomes dedicated you can see what an achievement this book is.
   
   In summary; if you have a particular problem that you want to use NLTK for but can't get your head round either the problem or the software buy Natural Language Processing with Python now - your frontal lobes will thank you forever. If you are interested in the field, and especially if you come from a pragmatic viewpoint or are already a Python hacker then you certainly won't be wasting your time or money. If you are terrified by the concept of programming and want an overview of the theory of linguistic analysis then there are probably better books for you out there.