> a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool
Honestly this is not a terrible approach. Years ago I bought TLPI and TAOE and have in felt a little guilty when I see them in my library (TBH being displayed with a bit of pride) but I haven’t read them.
The thing is that it’s been actually multiple times when I need to look up how to write to pipes in C or how to use a FET and I’ve just gone upstairs, grab the book and learn all I need to know. Sure, there’s kagi and chatgpt but I’d argue that both of those resources are not the same level of quality than a good book is!
Same has happened a Lua book, multiple Maths books and so on… bought them aspiring to read them, felt guilty about not reading them cover to cover, turns out they have been actually useful when I least expected.
Than Taleb would come up with the idea of an antilibrary in black swan makes a lot of sense… that might be another I might need to buy and not read :-)
Honestly this is not a terrible approach. Years ago I bought TLPI and TAOE and have in felt a little guilty when I see them in my library (TBH being displayed with a bit of pride) but I haven’t read them.
The thing is that it’s been actually multiple times when I need to look up how to write to pipes in C or how to use a FET and I’ve just gone upstairs, grab the book and learn all I need to know. Sure, there’s kagi and chatgpt but I’d argue that both of those resources are not the same level of quality than a good book is!
Same has happened a Lua book, multiple Maths books and so on… bought them aspiring to read them, felt guilty about not reading them cover to cover, turns out they have been actually useful when I least expected.
Than Taleb would come up with the idea of an antilibrary in black swan makes a lot of sense… that might be another I might need to buy and not read :-)