
Reading the Book - motxilo
http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2003/cmsc311/Notes/Learn/read.html
======
edw519
_Think about this. Who's the person that learns the most from a class? Is it
that brainy person that got an A+ on the exam? That person learned a lot. But
the teacher, if they're any good, learns more. When you teach something, you
can't learn something half-heartedly. You are trying to explain it to the
students, so it needs to make sense to you._

Think about this. Who's the person who learns the most in life? Is it that
teacher who had to explain it to the students? That person learned a lot. But
the builder, if they're any good, learns more. When you build something, you
can't learn something half-heartedly. You are trying to actually make it work
in the real world, so it needs to make even more sense to you than it made to
your teacher.

~~~
tjr
Alan Perlis: _You think you know when you learn, are more sure when you can
write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program._

~~~
sophacles
That is pretty absurd. Find the most complex thing you have ever programmed
and go teach it to someone. Just because you made it does not mean you can
explain it. Further, while explaining there is a pretty good chance you will
find some bugs.

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jessriedel
Yes, there are some impatient people who unreasonably ask books to painlessly
teach them complicated material. But there is also a problem that most
technical books really _are_ poorly written, and the reason for this is
simple: for the people who are most qualified to teach material, there are
usually terrible incentives for them to invest the enormous effort it takes to
write books.

For instance, in Academia, there is pretty much a _penalty_ associated with
top professors writing books. Writing a good technical book takes of order a
year, and one year not publishing papers is easily enough to prevent someone
from getting tenure. Tenure committees give negligible weight to producing
good texts, and the royalties from upper-level books is insignificant, so why
would a professor bother?

This won't change unless the incentives are changed.

~~~
pmiller2
I have no evidence, but I suspect most textbooks are written by tenured
professors for precisely the reasons you've outlined. I would submit that
these people (not untenured assistant professors) are the most qualified to
write such books. I attribute the fact that most textbooks are terrible to
Sturgeon's law (90% of everything is crap), so I don't think changing the
incentives will increase the proportion of good textbooks, though it may
increase the absolute number of such books.

~~~
jessriedel
This is a reasonable suggestion, but I disagree for three reasons:

1\. It's a common misconception that professors work very hard for tenure and
then, once they get it, are free to do whatever they want. (In other words,
that there is some "threshold".) Instead, the system is set up to keep
professors on a treadmill until they are very old through grant "carrots".
Yes, it's possible once you secure tenure to just hang out and think deep
thoughts, but this leads to salary stagnation or even regression. Instead,
most professor continually chase money by cranking out research. Taking time
off to write books means significantly less salary, (which is not nearly made
up for by book royalties).

(This is my impression as a physics grad student. Other department might be a
bit different.)

2\. I claim that the hardest part about writing books is distinguishing what's
obvious from what's not _for the student_. Once you've been using the material
for years, it's very difficult to remember all the tiny mental leaps that are
required to get from point A to point B. Yes, you need a mastery of the
material to write a book, but sufficient mastery for textbook writing comes
with only a few years of research experience (as opposed to, say, review
papers which require extra experience because they are more-cutting-edge/less-
canonical).

3\. Even if tenured professors _didn't_ have a penalty for writing textbooks
and they _were_ the most qualified (in contradiction to my first two claims)
there needs to be some serious incentive for them to get off their ass and
write a whole book. Those incentives doesn't exist right now. A lack of
penalty isn't enough.

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chegra
I have this thing about learning stuff. If I find something hard to
understand, it is normally not me it is my source. I have years of proving I
could understand stuff, but these authors generally don't have that level of
experience in teaching stuff.

I remember in my A-level Computer Science class when we had to explain stuff,
the lecturer would give an automatic zero if it didn't come with an example. I
carry this practice with me now of giving examples when I'm trying to
explaining stuff and non-technical people have commented they understand the
concepts behind some of the technical things I write for them. I find that a
lot textbooks fail to provide enough examples and analogies; they present just
equation and abstract concepts. It amazes me how people find OOP hard to
learn. Then I realize that my lecturer was off the chart in explain stuff.
Tons of analogy and the like.

So, yea that is how I judge technical books, how many examples and analogies
they provide.

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mad44
Most textbooks are actually badly written. They are written by busy profs who
don't put too much time into making the concepts easily accessible. This is
because writing a book takes a lot of time, and the author does not get much
monetary compensation back. The author gets some recognition, but by spending
that much time on grant writing and paper writing, he would get much more
recognition and funds.

So the problem could be the book, don't blame yourself for everything. Search
for the best book. Recently, I found that often the best book is an online
tutorial, resource, blog. My 2 cents.

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elptacek
For many years, I wished for a boss who would hand me a book and say, "here's
a book, read up on it." Little did I know that I had to marry him first.

</twee>

~~~
motxilo
As a Java programmer, I once was welcomed at a new job: "Here you are.
Effective Java. Read it all, cover to cover." Having programmed in Java for a
couple of years, it was like a punch direct to my face. And it was awesome.

------
dean
This whole post is just giving excuses for bad writing. Even though some
subjects can be very difficult, a knowledgeable person, who knows how to teach
and how to write can produce something useful. Personally, I tend to keep
trying different books until I find something that makes sense to me. But I
admit this is not always possible with more esoteric subjects. A good text
book, like a good teacher, makes a big difference.

~~~
motxilo
As Pliny the Younger proclaimed: "There never was a book so bad that it was
not good in some passage or another."

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jacques_chester
Some well-read fellows called Mortimer Adler and Charles van Doren wrote a
book called _How to Read a Book_.

It serves two useful purposes.

1\. It provides a framework for thoroughly digesting important books.

2\. It is a rich vein of humour for visiting friends to mine when they spot it
on your book shelf.

[http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-
book/dp/06712...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-
book/dp/0671212095)

------
drx
My advice: if you don't understand it at first, read it again. And again.
Follow the references and read them if you need to. Or google what you don't
understand, read up on it on Wikipedia, or another source. People give up way
too easily.

Some of you might remember the invisible wall in your mind between you and
college-level (and higher) math/science books/papers that you had before you
went to college. Breaking that barrier has been one of the most important
things I got from college.

Nothing is too difficult to understand (someone had to understand it to write
a book about it), so don't give up too early.

------
gersh
Some books are bad. However, some of the best books shouldn't be easy to read.
I think there is a lot of value in struggling through hard books. At times I
think the internet has made things too easy.

Look at any great math book. Large leaps of logic are declared 'obvious', and
left as exercises for the reader. While such exercises often aren't easy,
struggling with such exercises helps you learn. Before the internet provided
tutorials for everything, you had to really struggle when you couldn't figure
something out. Yet, I think I really learned to program from that struggle.

You learn to find information that isn't spoonfed to you. When you do, you
will better be able to dig beneath hype and propoganda, and make up your own
mind. Look for clues, and try thinking for yourself instead of getting all the
answers from someone else.

~~~
billswift
It depends on why the book is hard. Sometimes it's just sloppy thinking and
writing; sometimes it is an inherently hard subject. It isn't always clear
when starting which it is so it is useful, if you start having trouble to
compare the one you are reading with another on the same subject.

For reading that is inherently difficult, Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren
give some very helpful information in _How to Read a Book_. Unfortunately it
is not an easy read itself.

Another book I found helpful was _A Time to Learn_ by Phillip Bandt, Naomi
Meara, and Lyle Schmidt. It has some really good ideas on diagramming complex
work to help you understand them, especially how their ideas fit together.

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networkjester
TL;DR

Sorry, I had to, especially since it's kinda true (just glad there was a
summary at the end). I guess I'm lucky this wasn't required reading for my
job. ;)

As a physics major I never actually read the books; I know this is why I
wasn't a straight A student (close enough though) and probably why I took away
less than I know I could have.

There were other majors in our department that would beat themselves up over
the material, taking hours on end to really understand and apply it (this was
impressive). They were the ones with straight A's, not because they were
smarter than everyone but because they took the time to rip into the material.
I'm always in awe of these kind of people.

TL;DR Don't read the book, devour it.

------
dawgr
"In the US, we like to think reporters have no bias, but of course, they do.
In Europe, the biases are much clearer."

Not related to the main point of the article, but I don't agree with that. It
was very subtle, but in my opinion that is a big lie.

~~~
motxilo
I think it is _strongly_ related to the main point of the article, insofar
there are types of books that allow you a broader margin for thinking and
constructive critiques, and on the other hand, for technical books this is not
so obvious. What don't you agree with? What and why is a big lie?

