Building LLM Powered Applications: Create intelligent apps and agents with large language models

by Valentina Alto

Genres: Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence

342 pages, Paperback

Published May 22, 2024

Reviews

[Muhammad Khan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book around the same time it was published in May/June 2024 but only picked it up 2 years later. As it happens in the 2 years I’d been experimenting and learning hands-on, trying to keep up with the pace of LLM model releases. Had I read this book in 2024, it would definitely have been state-of-the-art and valuable learning, but today it is woefully out-of-date (by 2025 a year later it should have stopped selling, and should be pulled from publishers). There is some value in looking back and realizing “Ah, that’s how they built that” but that’s about it.

The pace of AI development is so fast, rather stick to YouTube and online content for ongoing AI education, especially if you’re interested in application level.

Not recommended reading.

[Mikhail Filatov · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author gives some interesting business-related examples, like invoice processing and covers many topics in prompt engineering, agents, etc.
There are quite a lot of repetition in her examples -e.g., for every example she describes how to build almost the same UX.
But the main issue, imho, is her avoidance of “hallucinations”. Except mentioning it a bit in prompt engineering chapter all her agents plan everything write, LLMs always provide a right result.

[Kerszi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Niestety książka nie przetrwała próby czasu. Została wydana w 2024 roku, a obecnie mamy 2026 rok, dlatego wiele poruszanych w niej tematów zdążyło się już zdezaktualizować. Nadal warto przeczytać rozdziały dotyczące podstaw oraz programowania, jednak dużo rzeczy wymaga aktualizacji.

[Jack Murphy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A shallow piece of work that aggregates information available from API docs. Nothing insightful or deep.

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible book with great examples and knowledge about LLMs. Highly recommend

[HonTran · Rating 5 out of 5]

An useful book

[Ahmed Mansour · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked it a lot as a good start to expand my software engineering mindset and to integrate the LLM knowledge into it.
I recommend it to all software engineers who want to find out more about LLMs without diving too deep in the beginning.

[Asim Ghaffar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book strikes a good balance between theory and hands-on implementation. Author provides clear explanations of LLM concepts while demonstrating their application through well-structured example apps. The book covers frameworks like LangChain and practical prompt engineering techniques, making it a useful resource for developers looking to integrate LLMs into real-world solutions. A solid read for beginners and intermediate practitioners exploring AI-powered applications.