sometimes read it all and intend to go back and do exercises, sometimes read it all and actually do them on the way. Probably not all of them.
Ask HN: How do you read programming books?
51–60 of 84 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you read programming books?
#52I have read ALL the comments below. They are ALL excellent. I have a BS in Engineering, 1976, with only Fortran IV from the card key-punch days. Ugh! Worked on a defense software program and learned JOVIAL and VAX/VMS at work and C and some Unix at home. Prior, I had read Wirth's Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs. Pascal = JOVIAL = ADA. C seemed to have the real power with access to the underlying computer via…
Do you think Nicholas Wirth's Algorithms and Data Structures is still relevant ? Should I study it ? I have an old copy
Re: Ask HN: How do you read programming books?
#53I'm going to give away the secret of autodidactic learning here. I developed this technique in college. Although there was no such thing as YouTube back then, iTunes etc. I get at least two, preferably three data sources on the same subject. Read them all in Parallel and take notes. Getting multiple perspectives is critical. What works for me is two well-made textbooks and a Youtube series, iTunes university, etc cou…
Exactly how I aced high school. And got into MIT.
Much less useful to me in college. Even less useful now. I must have 100 programming books in Google drive.
The only way to learn something (and certainly programming) at a high level is to force yourself to write down a well- defined, closed-end problem, and then sit down and solve the motherf_____r. You learn what you need to learn, build, and invent along the way, and that survives longer than the original problem.
Re: Ask HN: How do you read programming books?
#5499% of the time I don't anymore. I used to read a lot, now I just pull information from the net, I have feeds of information exposing me to new ideas. Most technical frameworks have a ton of information readily available. The only books I go to are Math and Algorithm books I have on my bookshelf when I know something obscure I want is in them.
Learning falls into two categories for me
- Things you don't know you don't know
- Thing you know you don't know
First one is the trickiest as you need ways to be exposed to something you don't know and being able to recognize its importance amoungst the flood of things you are exposed to. Things like HN are helpful.
Second one I keep notes on things I know I don't know. These often are things that I kind of have a fuzzy idea of what it does, but haven't really spent time on understanding exactly what it is. For instance, webpack is on my list, I use it a lot, I modify configs and get stuff done. I have a fuzzy idea of how works. But I haven't spent any time understanding it from the ground up and don't know how to set something up from scratch. But at some point webpack will bubble to the top of my things where I have knowledge gaps. So when I work on my chosen knowledge gap, I read a bunch of things, conduct a bunch of experiements, look on stackoverflow and look to answer questions, see how other people have solved existing problems.
Re: Ask HN: How do you read programming books?
#55Long time I haven't, but when I did, I usually read three or four first chapters in a row, then jumped to certain chapters that I specifically needed.
Also most of the times, the intro and the very first chapters are optional, motivational.
Re: Ask HN: How do you read programming books?
#56I have read ALL the comments below. They are ALL excellent. I have a BS in Engineering, 1976, with only Fortran IV from the card key-punch days. Ugh! Worked on a defense software program and learned JOVIAL and VAX/VMS at work and C and some Unix at home. Prior, I had read Wirth's Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs. Pascal = JOVIAL = ADA. C seemed to have the real power with access to the underlying computer via…
What do you mean by 'sw'?
[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How do you read programming books?
#57I'm going to give away the secret of autodidactic learning here. I developed this technique in college. Although there was no such thing as YouTube back then, iTunes etc. I get at least two, preferably three data sources on the same subject. Read them all in Parallel and take notes. Getting multiple perspectives is critical. What works for me is two well-made textbooks and a Youtube series, iTunes university, etc cou…
Exactly how I aced high school. And got into MIT. Much less useful to me in college. Even less useful now. I must have 100 programming books in Google drive. The only way to learn something (and certainly programming) at a high level is to force yourself to write down a well- defined, closed-end problem, and then sit down and solve the motherf_____r. You learn what you need to learn, build, and invent along the way,…
I Agree. You learn so much more when you are focused on solving that problem.
Re: Ask HN: How do you read programming books?
#58I have read ALL the comments below. They are ALL excellent. I have a BS in Engineering, 1976, with only Fortran IV from the card key-punch days. Ugh! Worked on a defense software program and learned JOVIAL and VAX/VMS at work and C and some Unix at home. Prior, I had read Wirth's Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs. Pascal = JOVIAL = ADA. C seemed to have the real power with access to the underlying computer via…
Do you think Nicholas Wirth's Algorithms and Data Structures is still relevant ? Should I study it ? I have an old copy
Unqualified yes but do brush up on other interesting stuff that was invented after that book was written. Still, it is surprising how timeless the content of books like that is.
Re: Ask HN: How do you read programming books?
#59I have read ALL the comments below. They are ALL excellent. I have a BS in Engineering, 1976, with only Fortran IV from the card key-punch days. Ugh! Worked on a defense software program and learned JOVIAL and VAX/VMS at work and C and some Unix at home. Prior, I had read Wirth's Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs. Pascal = JOVIAL = ADA. C seemed to have the real power with access to the underlying computer via…
What do you mean by 'sw'?
Software.
Re: Ask HN: How do you read programming books?
#60I'm going to give away the secret of autodidactic learning here. I developed this technique in college. Although there was no such thing as YouTube back then, iTunes etc. I get at least two, preferably three data sources on the same subject. Read them all in Parallel and take notes. Getting multiple perspectives is critical. What works for me is two well-made textbooks and a Youtube series, iTunes university, etc cou…
Exactly how I aced high school. And got into MIT. Much less useful to me in college. Even less useful now. I must have 100 programming books in Google drive. The only way to learn something (and certainly programming) at a high level is to force yourself to write down a well- defined, closed-end problem, and then sit down and solve the motherf_____r. You learn what you need to learn, build, and invent along the way,…
Right. I think learning this way forces yourself to solve the problem by teaching the discipline to yourself. It's always said that you don't truly understand something until you are able to teach it to another so in that sense you a sort of "tricking" yourself into teaching it to yourself as you learn it. It's a round about way of thinking / doing things but those mental gymnastics feel necessary to me to absorb such unnatural and abstract (to me) topics.