Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#351

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 27, 2026, 4:32 PM UTC

flyby25 wrote: post #350

locusofself wrote: post #180

This might be an unpopular thing to do, but lately I've been literally having claude/chatgpt write books for my personal consumption: things to brush up interview skills, python, system design, and even agentic coding. I've also had it aggregate substack posts for me, etc. I have it generate an ePub file, and drag and drop it to my kindle. It's a great way to take information with me, out for a long walk where I can…

I recommend using internet archive to access free texts for ereaders. LLMs will be trained on these texts already, it is better to get it straight from the source.

[deleted]

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#352

Post by fastasucan » Wed, May 27, 2026, 5:34 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #300

rustyhancock wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm similar, I think perhaps it's a generational thing which slightly modified the title in a pedantic way. The people who "grew up" with text books still crack new ones and old ones. The current generation turning 18-21 don't. It surprises me because I'm often asked why I knew X or Y odd perhaps esoteric fact or design pattern. Usually it's because I came across it in a book interested in something else. It's that p…

Surely people still use textbooks for formal education? This has to be something that happens later.

The last three years more or less none of my students have bought the textbook for the subject. That is pretty mind blowing. In turn they expect a complete textbook from my lecture notes, which isn't possible.

I get that textbooks are getting more expensive though.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#353

Post by shawn_w » Wed, May 27, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

subscribed wrote: post #346

shawn_w wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? That's not how it works at all.

I was unable to post answers to the questions within my domain of knowledge, because I didn't post answers (and get likes) outside of my domain of knowledge. There's a minimum threshold of likes ("reputation") necessary to post in many parts of that service.

No. No there's not. If you get lots of downvotes on answers you might get banned from answering further questions until you improve your reputation score, but there's nothing like what you describe.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#354

Post by markus_zhang » Wed, May 27, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

skissane wrote: post #338

markus_zhang wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. How did he start? My 6 years old probably would love to play games or what not, but I don’t think he has the patience when he is a bit older.

I bought him a desktop with Windows installed. At some point, he decided he wanted to install Linux. He wanted to try Arch, but got stuck on the install process, so I helped him install Ubuntu. Later on, he managed to solve his problem with Arch installation-so now his desktop triple-boots between Windows, Ubuntu and Arch, although he almost never boots into Windows any more. For his 13th birthday, we bought him a la…

Thanks! Looks like he started very early! What kind of things did you allow him to do when he was a preschooler? I’d assume maybe 30 mins everyday, mainly about typing games and maybe a bit of BASIC? Did he show patience back then or did you grow his patience somehow?

Sorry about the train of questions…

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#355

Post by einsteinx2 » Wed, May 27, 2026, 9:41 PM UTC

I’ve been programming since well before LLMs and I never learned well from programming books. It just wasn’t the right format for me. I always learned by picking a project at the edge of my ability and just going for it, looking things up as needed and solving problems as I came across them.

I had tried learning from books when I was younger and that was the reason I thought for years that I couldn’t learn to program. Turns out books just aren’t for me (I love reading in general, just not to learn programming).

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#356

Post by atribecalledqst » Thu, May 28, 2026, 12:38 AM UTC

floxy wrote: post #315

atribecalledqst wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still find myself hoping (probably futilely) that Bjarne Stroustrop will come out with a new edition of The C++ Programming Language, to help me understand all the features that have been added to it since C++14...

If you haven't seen "A Tour of C++": https://stroustrup.com/tour3.html

Thank you! I knew that existed, but now that I read the synopsis I'm thinking that the C++20/23 material makes sense in this "tour" book... the C++11 (and earlier) material in The C++ Programming Language is like the basis for the language, and everything that came after is more advanced in usage. I guess.

Anyway, maybe all obvious observations but thank you nonetheless

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#357

Post by littlexsparkee » Thu, May 28, 2026, 12:58 AM UTC

For what it's worth, they are still popular in my library system - I request new titles from O'Reilly and Manning and see titles from other niches than mine so there's definitely folks that still prefer paper. Patrons get free online access to O'Reilly as well.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#358

Post by hellojesus » Thu, May 28, 2026, 4:23 AM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #324

BrenBarn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought StackOverflow was pretty great. This is an unpopular opinion but I think a lot of the questions that were closed really deserved to be closed. Otherwise it would have been a firehose of the same basic questions over and over again. For every person who posted a question and got mad that it was closed, there were probably 100 people who googled something and found a useful StackOverflow answer that was relev…

Yes. People forget it was a response to abominations such as Yahoo Answers, which quickly devolved into a cesspool of mouthbreathers, haha. Also expert-sexchange/quora which tried-to/often-did hide the answers. Without its "tough love" Stack would have had a similar trajectory. Maybe a few policies here and there were problematic but overall it was and continues to be a huge benefit to the developer/IT community.

Yahoo answers gave us MBMBAM. For that I will always be thankful.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#359

Post by womble2 » Thu, May 28, 2026, 6:43 AM UTC

kingstnap wrote: post #293

colonelspace wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are YouTube and WhatsApp social media?

You named the two biggest platforms [0], YouTube and WhatsApp are the social media. This is kinda like asking if Saudi Arabia and Russia are petrostates lol. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_social_pl...

They were made into social media, but when they were aquired they were just video hosting and sms replacements with little (no?) social engagement aspect.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#360

Post by harrouet » Thu, May 28, 2026, 8:10 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #238

harrouet wrote: post #212

I do buy programming books! I even sometimes read them without touching a computer. Studies show that books is the best media to learn. Forget video, books + practice (now with AI explanations) is my learning methodology.

But nowadays you can read books, and ask AI to help you read them. I'm curious if someone built a proper interface for that usecase.

If your purpose is learning, use paper. Studies show that it much more efficient than screens to remember information, as your brain physically maps where the info comes from.