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The Hacker News Top books of 2023

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Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#81

Post by partomniscient »

theusus wrote: post #63
medler wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say that? I like it and would recommend it to anyone. Since I’m asking you to critique it I’ll go ahead and critique it myself, even though I’m overall positive on it. It’s aimed mainly at middle-aged business owners who are used to getting what they want and are, well, assholes. As such, its main message is to be nice and try to see things from the other person’s perspective. That’s good advice for the ta…

My issue with the book is that it asks because to pretend that they are nice.

It should be titled "How to win friends and influence people by being insincere".

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#82

Post by harshreality »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #66
sfpotter wrote: post #22

The math books that made the list are ones that always rate highly on these lists, but I think they are uniformly bad choices for people with a more passive or recreational interest in math. A lot of textbook publishers have series for undergraduates which are a better choice. For example, here’s Springer’s: https://www.springer.com/series/3423 . For someone who has a college level education in science or engineering…

Yeah I laughed a bit when I saw Rudin’s book on that list. Understanding Analysis would be a better choice, even the end chapters of Spivak’s Calculus are a great into to Real Analysis.

I agree and I don't know why the myth persists that [baby] Rudin is the best way to learn analysis. It's certainly not so for a lot of people who could learn analysis perfectly well from friendlier (but not necessarily any less rigorous) sources. Rudin requires a lot of self-motivation.

In addition to Abbott which you mentioned,

"How to Think About Analysis" (Alcock), good gentle introduction for anyone who tries to dive into an analysis textbook and hits concrete.

"Real Mathematical Analysis" (Pugh), good, rigorous approach that doesn't require quite as much effort to power through as Rudin does, although some of the exercises are tough.

"Analysis I" and II (Tao), is good and starts from scratch building numbers from the Peano axioms, so there are no other unproven assumptions underlying everything later.

"Counterexamples in Analysis" (Gelbalm & Olmstead), very helpful for understanding some pathological cases that break theorems one might intuitively believe are true.

There's no reason today why someone can't grab pdfs of all of the above (even Rudin, although it's never been digitally typeset), from any friendly internet library, and use them all to build a better understanding rather than relying on one alone.

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#84

Post by rramadass »

titanomachy wrote: post #28
sfpotter wrote: post #22

The math books that made the list are ones that always rate highly on these lists, but I think they are uniformly bad choices for people with a more passive or recreational interest in math. A lot of textbook publishers have series for undergraduates which are a better choice. For example, here’s Springer’s: https://www.springer.com/series/3423 . For someone who has a college level education in science or engineering…

Do you think the Princeton Companion is good for an amateur/casual audience? I've been thinking of picking up a copy. I've taken like 8-10 undergrad math courses, but no advanced topics.

Definitely!

I have both the Princeton Companion to Mathematics and Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics and both are well worth the money. One of the difficulties in studying the breadth of mathematics is that the huge amount of jargon/notation of the different branches/models/tools all seem complex/unrelated and hence a single volume where you can jump back and forth between different views is very much necessary to appreciate the unity of Mathematics. It is also an invaluable aid in understanding new terminologies/techniques that one may come across while studying other subjects. The volumes are truly comprehensive w.r.t. "Modern Mathematics" and should be a part of every educated person's "personal library".

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#85

Post by rramadass »

encomiast wrote: post #60

Amazon drives me absolutely nuts. I clicked on the link for Polya's 'How to Solve It' and it took me to a page with a $69.99 paperback and a link to a $10 e-textbook. I click the textbook link and now the paperback link is to an identical looking $16.45 book, the only difference I can tell is that it is the "reprint" edition (aren't they all reprints given the original was published in 1945?). The reviews and most in…

Yeah, it's a bit of a problem but not that difficult to search for the book on Amazon and then on Google to locate the publishers. Also always check wikipedia for details (eg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Solve_It). For classics like Polya also check used book stores (in addition to Amazon) like https://www.betterworldbooks.com/ https://www.thriftbooks.com/ etc. where you can get good editions for cheap.

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#86

Post by latexr »

comboy wrote: post #41
krick wrote: post #33

Offtopic, but is it just me who struggles to treat seriously any post that has "I used GPT" somewhere in the beginning? This one actually isn't a good example, since I "feel" it's kinda reliable for the task, and may only produce slight false-negatives, which isn't that bad, and I don't see any other plausible way to parse HN comments for books anyway. But I'm noticing lately that I'm half-consciously slightly annoye…

s/used GPT/used Google history rhymes

Those are not at all the same thing. You used a search engine to find something else which you’d then cite as the source of the information. No one would take your research seriously if you cited Google Search as the source.

I don’t understand if people trying to equate the two are doing so in bad faith to confuse everyone or are genuinely incapable of understanding the difference. Either reason is quite worrisome for our future.

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#87

Post by latexr »

krick wrote: post #33

Offtopic, but is it just me who struggles to treat seriously any post that has "I used GPT" somewhere in the beginning? This one actually isn't a good example, since I "feel" it's kinda reliable for the task, and may only produce slight false-negatives, which isn't that bad, and I don't see any other plausible way to parse HN comments for books anyway. But I'm noticing lately that I'm half-consciously slightly annoye…

It’s not just you, and your reaction makes perfect sense.

When someone wrote a post, that implied some kind of research and insight you might’ve not arrived at on your own without a significant time investment and perhaps a number of specific skills or contacts. You could follow the logic and the sources and evaluate each step of the journey. Even if a conclusion were wrong, you might still glean important accurate information, such as a specific resource to use in the future, or appreciate the investigative journey the author went on.

When a post starts by mentioning an LLM as the source of the information, they might just as well tell you the prompt and end the post there. You can run the query yourself and interpret the result on your own. Saying they used an LLM is like saying they used a search engine, clicked a result without thinking, and everything is based off of that but they won’t even tell you the URL. You have zero idea if the information is accurate and can’t even trust or learn from the analysis.

Like yourself, I’m not trying to use this particular submission as an example. Rather, I’m attempting to decode where your feeling (again, you’re not alone) might in general come from.

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#88

Post by atulatul »

gonzo41 wrote: post #6
crimbles wrote: post #2

Read/use 13 of them. The Phoenix Project is however used as toilet paper. This is a symbolic gesture after working in a very fucked up company who decided the management restructure wasn’t at fault and maybe if they bought a copy and gave it to everyone and we used it as a religious text then everything would be fine. It was a painful read at best. Surprised to see Euclid’s elements. I have a volume from 1742 on the…

The Phoenix Project is ok. It's just a simple parable to teach people about the benefits of ITSM and CAB. However, I really wished someone would write something like the phoenix project but there's no happy ending. Instead, things just get worse and worse for all the characters, both professionally and personally.

Every unhappy ending is unhappy in its own way...To paraphrase half of a famous opening line.

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#89

Post by atulatul »

drivers99 wrote: post #15
gonzo41 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Phoenix Project is ok. It's just a simple parable to teach people about the benefits of ITSM and CAB. However, I really wished someone would write something like the phoenix project but there's no happy ending. Instead, things just get worse and worse for all the characters, both professionally and personally.

The Goal was an interesting read after having read The Phoenix Project. It's what The Phoenix Project was based on. It's about the Theory of Constraints and in "The Goal" they're trying to save a manufacturing plant. (First edition is from 1984. They're up to fourth edition.)

I personally liked The Goal much more than The Phoenix project. That could be because I read it very early in my career, and also maybe because when I read the latter book, I was already following a few of the recommendations mentioned there.

Re: The Hacker News Top books of 2023

#90

Post by ruszki »

krick wrote: post #33

Offtopic, but is it just me who struggles to treat seriously any post that has "I used GPT" somewhere in the beginning? This one actually isn't a good example, since I "feel" it's kinda reliable for the task, and may only produce slight false-negatives, which isn't that bad, and I don't see any other plausible way to parse HN comments for books anyway. But I'm noticing lately that I'm half-consciously slightly annoye…

It seems to me that everybody forgot that LLMs hallucinate all the time.
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