Books I Recommend • Hacker News Board

Re: Books I Recommend

#51

Post by dwringer » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

crispyambulance wrote: post #49

jeff76 wrote: post #6

I don’t understand why people recommend books like “a programmers introduction to mathematics”. They’re advertised as books for “programmers” or people that know little math, yet they hide solutions from the reader. The reader that doesn’t know proper proofs or deep mathematics likely isn’t the same ones that know if their solutions are correct. Programmers like to write code with test cases. We don’t like to write c…

> So, why would we want to write mathematics any differently? I think you're stretching the unit-test-to-mathematics analogy a little too far. I haven't looked at the book in question, but generally, you don't just "know if" your solution is correct, you prove it, or at least consider examples that can demonstrate if your solution works in some conceivable cases. That's how "unit tests" work in mathematics. If the bo…

As I read it, the point is not about using unit tests to verify correctness, but as an interactive means of learning the problem inside and out prior to finding a complete solution. The trick is in learning what you don't know, and one can do that faster with regular feedback. There does seem to be a delicate balance between letting a student "stew" for a bit to really learn how to find and be confident in solutions, and preventing the student from heading down a wrong course. Books can never provide real feedback, I suppose, but it's a nice option to have solutions available even if students must be trusted to independently exhaust the available resources for attaining them first. Often having the solution is at least helpful as a "sanity check" when it comes to mathematics - I feel it is all too easy for beginners to make proofs on hidden and untenable assumptions and not necessarily realize it.

Re: Books I Recommend

#52

Post by 1987001 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

great I love it

Re: Books I Recommend

#53

Post by rgrieselhuber » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:51 PM UTC

metaphor wrote: post #16

sefrost wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This website has a list of books talked about on HN: https://hackernewsbooks.com

Another functional equivalent: https://toptalkedbooks.com/hackernews

I personally find Hacker News Books to be easier on the eyes.

Re: Books I Recommend

#54

Post by DevX101 » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

lbacaj wrote: post #21

I read/listen to a lot of books and the only book on there I’ve read so far is The Managers Path, which is about the transition of the software engineer in his/her career. It’s a great book for any software engineer, it’s short too. Given that I haven’t heard of many of the other books on the list, I’d say this is a good list I’ll be checking out a few of the titles. One trick about “reading” (listening) to a good ch…

Can you post an audio sample on the landing page? A narrator's voice has a big impact on if I want to listen to an audiobook. With this being automated my first concern is that this will sound way too robotic.

Also if you don't mind sharing, how did you get the voice library?

Re: Books I Recommend

#55

Post by jihadjihad » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

byproxy wrote: post #46

I wish this place was a bit more hospitable to literary fiction.

It can be, depending on the particular thread. I'll speak for myself, but I find it incredibly difficult to read technical/business/pop-nonfic/etc. books in my free time. After a long day programming the last thing I want to do is read the literary equivalent of a TED talk. My bookshelf is a place where the "red dragon" Compilers book can peacefully coexist with Cannery Row--it's just that, more often that not, I reach for the fiction.

Re: Books I Recommend

#56

Post by caiocaiocaio » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

buzzdenver wrote: post #41

caiocaiocaio wrote: post #17

I can't believe someone could read Feynman's sandwich story and still recommend that book.

Feynman's book is definitely super sexist by modern standards. I wasn't around in the 60s and 70s to know if his was the general attitude, or an outlier. To me, the book is decent for background listening during chores or driving (it is a free audiobook if your library has an associated Hoopla account), but almost all stories boil down to either "I was such a horny guy", or "I used different math tools which allowed…

His behaviour was sexist enough to elicit massive protests because he kept sexually harassing his female students. The earliest protests against him were in the 60s.

Re: Books I Recommend

#57

Post by throwawaymath » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

jeff76 wrote: post #6

I don’t understand why people recommend books like “a programmers introduction to mathematics”. They’re advertised as books for “programmers” or people that know little math, yet they hide solutions from the reader. The reader that doesn’t know proper proofs or deep mathematics likely isn’t the same ones that know if their solutions are correct. Programmers like to write code with test cases. We don’t like to write c…

There’s no profound reason why authors don’t typically include solutions. It’s not gatekeeping and it’s not to appeal to an idealistic sense of the Right Way to learn mathematics.

The real reason is twofold:

1. Authors write textbooks for universities and professors, not students. They write for the academic paradigm they’re familiar with, in which the professor is primarily teaching a student. The textbook is simply used to arrange a course, and professors would rather not have solutions available in the textbook.

2. Authors don’t earn much money from textbooks and textbooks aren’t weighed very heavily for tenure. There isn’t much of an incentive for them to write textbooks with solutions for the reason stated above, and it’s actually significantly more work to include solutions to your exercises.

To put it very bluntly, there are extremely few non-students in the market for math textbooks, which is already a high-effort and low-return market for authors as it is. To get such a textbook you’d need someone who: knows the material extremely well, is very good at exposition, has a lot of time to invest in this as a passion project and doesn’t mind if it’s not used much or at all in well-known universities.

Re: Books I Recommend

#58

Post by alex7o » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:57 PM UTC

Kihashi wrote: post #44

fogetti wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! I completely agree! Also who cares if the solutions are online? If the professors want to use the book in classrooms then they should come up with their own exercises instead of basically stealing the book's questions. I completely agree that any book with exercises without solutions is completely useless. I didn't even have access to professors or any teaching assistants even DURING my undergraduate years. So…

> If the professors want to use the book in classrooms then they should come up with their own exercises instead of basically stealing the book's questions. I always wondered why there weren't supplement books/websites of practice problems that were separate from the text book. Seems like an easy way to make money. I guess because it makes it harder to pass on to the students.

There are a lot of "problem books" where I live in Bulgaria.

Re: Books I Recommend

#59

Post by peruvian » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 2:57 PM UTC

jihadjihad wrote: post #55

byproxy wrote: post #46

I wish this place was a bit more hospitable to literary fiction.

It can be, depending on the particular thread. I'll speak for myself, but I find it incredibly difficult to read technical/business/pop-nonfic/etc. books in my free time. After a long day programming the last thing I want to do is read the literary equivalent of a TED talk. My bookshelf is a place where the "red dragon" Compilers book can peacefully coexist with Cannery Row--it's just that, more often that not, I rea…

I used to be vehemtly against self help/business books but the podcast Bookworms helped me find some valuable ones. The hosts go through a book and summarize or talk about it.

But in general I agree - I don’t want to read about I can be more “efficient” at work during my leisure time. I’d rather read a novel or history book.

Re: Books I Recommend

#60

Post by brm » Mon, Feb 25, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

lbacaj wrote: post #21

I read/listen to a lot of books and the only book on there I’ve read so far is The Managers Path, which is about the transition of the software engineer in his/her career. It’s a great book for any software engineer, it’s short too. Given that I haven’t heard of many of the other books on the list, I’d say this is a good list I’ll be checking out a few of the titles. One trick about “reading” (listening) to a good ch…

Counterpoint: while I agree that audio is useful for learning, I’d encourage everyone to not consider mental downtime wasted. And that we should resist the urge to fill it with content constantly. We must be able as humans to simply sit alone with our own thoughts. It’s as important for creativity and mental output as anything learned in those “dead”, “wasted” times.