Textbook manifesto (2016)
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Textbook manifesto (2016)
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Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)
#2I think this is needed, most courses have one or two textbooks which compounded together with a full courseload is a lot of pages, however the full textbook is also never used, only several chapters are usually recommended reading, really beating the point of buying the whole book
Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)
#3A lot of people tend to harp on the "textbooks are too expensive" issue, and I think this correctly identifies one of the problems: textbook price is not an issue to many professors. Unfortunately, there's no actual solution to that presented.
> If you can’t find one, write one. It’s not that hard.
I've used three or four textbooks written by my professor, and I can't say the quality was all that great. Considering that the set of professors who currently choose to write their own textbooks probably skews toward professors who are good at writing textbooks, I'm not super high on this plan.
> Students: You should go on strike. If your textbook costs more than $50, don’t buy it. If it has more than 500 pages, don’t read it. There’s just no excuse for bad books.
Many students already do this. It's not uncommon for students to not buy a single textbook in a semester. In fact, the professors that do care about textbook price generally make textbooks optional. It turns out that's a lot easier than writing your own textbook and somehow selling it for cheap.
Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)
#4While I agree with the content of this in general, I find books to be burdensome and would not like a course centered around them. I think a series of well crafted video lectures are a better medium for some people, myself included.
I also find that I can learn everything I need to in my Software Engineering program via a series of pointed google searches much quicker than reading a text. Most courses have 1 or more $100 books which are "required" but I haven't bought them in years.
What I /would/ like, is sample problems with solutions ;)
Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)
#5Here's the list of free books from the website: http://greenteapress.com/wp/
Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)
#6"Learning from Data" is a reasonable example of the type of textbook the author is asking for.
There is something to be said about the value of "reference" books, however. Maybe reference books shouldn't be used in classes, but there can be great value in a 1000 page book that has a complete discussion of everything you'd expect.
Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)
#7While I agree with the content of this in general, I find books to be burdensome and would not like a course centered around them. I think a series of well crafted video lectures are a better medium for some people, myself included. I also find that I can learn everything I need to in my Software Engineering program via a series of pointed google searches much quicker than reading a text. Most courses have 1 or more…
I think this depends a lot on the particular courses. For example, I nearly always want a textbook in an upper division math class, because they're so heavy on theory, and the concepts are very dense. It's useful to see it all written out on a few pages, and be able to refer to it easily. In most of my engineering classes, well done lectures work well because the concepts can be explained more clearly, and I'm a lot more likely to actually learn the material while it's being explained (because the material is not as dense).
Similarly, google searches are sometimes useful as supplementary reference for math classes, but are much more helpful in programming courses. In the more theoretical upper-division software engineering courses (theoretical computer science, AI, etc.), I find that google does not perform all that well, at least compared to other programming classes.
Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)
#8I was just thinking about asking HN about free books that will get me started in phython. This seems to have a quite a few [0]. Has HN read any of these or recommends anything in particular?
(I went through learning python the hard way a few years back and have been slacking off)
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Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)
#9For high-level math courses, the best I've seen is a reader written by the professor, combined with an optional 1000 page tome.
The reader goes with the lectures, and is focused on the actual material of the course. The reader, combined with your notes, basically covers the lectures. Meanwhile, if you need another take on the material, or some wider context, the 1000 page tome is always there. This works especially well if the reader points to equivalent chapters in the tome.
Re: Textbook manifesto (2016)
#10A lot of people tend to harp on the "textbooks are too expensive" issue, and I think this correctly identifies one of the problems: textbook price is not an issue to many professors. Unfortunately, there's no actual solution to that presented. > If you can’t find one, write one. It’s not that hard. I've used three or four textbooks written by my professor, and I can't say the quality was all that great. Considering t…
> Many students already do this. It's not uncommon for students to not buy a single textbook in a semester.
I never bought a textbook unless I absolutely completely needed it. Otherwise I did anything possible to get it if I needed it before outright buying the book. In some cases just using Google was enough for the class. Especially for most of my programming courses. Textbooks are so expensive, and half of the time you don't even go through the whole of the book, not even getting your money's worth because the semester is not long enough for said book. Math textbooks were my only exception, though the school did allow me to borrow them for a few hours.