I bought a book from Packt called "R web scraping quick start guide" and it was unfortunately the worst thing I have ever spent my money on. Don't be fooled by their nice website or affordable prices, the contents of the book was atrocious. Very simply:1. The book did not do as it said. It said it would bring the reader through examples and explain concepts. It did not. It did a lot of listing but no explaining.2. In the preface of the book it said all the reader needed was a fundamental knowledge of R. I am a very proficient user of R but the contents of this book was for web scrapers wanting to use R, not R users looking to web scrape. Very few, if any, of the web scraping terms were explained in details to allow someone with no prior knowledge of web scraping to understand it.3. The editor did not do a good job either as the book does not flow from one coherent point to the next but instead jumps from one poorly explained concept to the next and sometimes back to the original idea which is very hard to follow. I understand that the authors first language may not be English, and I don't want to criticize other people's second language skills as I myself can only speak/read one but the author/editor/someone really should have done a better job. The paragraphs are broken up sentences that often are not on the same topic. It is a very difficult read, not because the concepts are difficult, but because of the way it is written.4. I wrote to Packt and asked for my money back. They appropriately asked for examples, and when I gave them the author challenged my expectations of the book. The book is clearly marketed as a quick start guide for R users to learn web scraping but the contents are not. They said if I wanted my money back I should have cancelled my order within one hour of purchasing it. How was I supposed to know this book would be terrible if I hadn't even read it yet?I don't really blame the author for the bad book, he was trying to make some money, I blame the editor for doing a terrible job and Packt for allowing this book to be sold on their website.Take home message: I won't be buying from packt ever again due to the poor reviewing quality.
Claim your business profile now and gain access to all features and respond to customer reviews.
