--- title: 5 useful things you'll learn in my post-training textbook description: Nathan Lambert announces the publication of his textbook 'Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback: Aligning and Post-training LLMs' by Manning. The book... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/5-useful-things-you-ll-learn-in-my-post-training-textbook-b3qbgnwpj twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: 5 useful things you'll learn in my post-training textbook | daily.dev og:description: Nathan Lambert announces the publication of his textbook 'Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback: Aligning and Post-training LLMs' by Manning. The book... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/5-useful-things-you-ll-learn-in-my-post-training-textbook-b3qbgnwpj og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/b3QBGnWpj.png og:image:alt: 5 useful things you'll learn in my post-training textbook og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # 5 useful things you'll learn in my post-training textbook **[Interconnects](https://daily.dev/sources/interconnects)** · 8 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Nathan Lambert announces the publication of his textbook 'Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback: Aligning and Post-training LLMs' by Manning. The book covers five key areas: intuitions for RL algorithms (PPO, GSPO, CISPO), systems design for modern RL training, the history of post-training from 2018 to present, demystifying distillation techniques, and practical pitfalls like over-optimization and character training. It targets CS-degree-level readers and is freely available online alongside a 12-hour YouTube course and code exercises. A 50% discount is available until August 19th with code PBLambert. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What topics does the RLHF post-training textbook by Nathan Lambert cover? The book covers RL algorithm intuitions (policy-gradient theorem, PPO, GSPO, CISPO), systems design for asynchronous RL training, the history of post-training from 2018 onward, knowledge distillation techniques including multi-teacher on-policy distillation, and practical challenges like over-optimization, regularization, evaluation, and character training. It targets readers with a CS bachelor's degree or equivalent background. _Engineers building on top of LLMs track post-training research like this on daily.dev._ ### Is there a free version of the RLHF book by Nathan Lambert available online? Yes, the full book is freely available at rlhfbook.com. It also comes with a 12-hour course including slides and YouTube videos, a code repository with exercises, and model completion comparisons. A print copy is available from Manning with 50% off using code PBLambert until August 19th, and from Amazon US now and Amazon UK in October. _Researchers keeping up with LLM alignment resources find them faster on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [GitHub - alxndrTL/little-book-rl: The Little Book of Reinforcement Learning](https://daily.dev/posts/github---alxndrtl-little-book-rl-the-little-book-of-reinforcement-learning-wwoibwros) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#machine-learning](https://daily.dev/tags/machine-learning) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/5-useful-things-you-ll-learn-in-my-post-training-textbook-b3qbgnwpj) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"5 useful things you'll learn in my post-training textbook","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/5-useful-things-you-ll-learn-in-my-post-training-textbook-b3qbgnwpj","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/5-useful-things-you-ll-learn-in-my-post-training-textbook-b3qbgnwpj"},"datePublished":"2026-08-10T13:04:24.445Z","dateModified":"2026-10-14T02:32:37.927Z","description":"Nathan Lambert announces the publication of his textbook 'Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback: Aligning and Post-training LLMs' by Manning. 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