undefined | Better HN

0 pointsjagged-chisel5y ago0 comments

There was a commenter here on HN (if my Google-fu serves me, I'll come back and edit with a link) talking about this problem wrt contracted educational services. Folks request intermediate to advanced training. The trainer shows up, finds out that everyone is actually a beginner with this particular technology, and has to adapt the course appropriately.

That's pretty good customer service, but it's not something you can get with a book. I suspect "intermediate" books with a "beginner" start are attempting to address this problem and head off the terrible reviews. Perhaps it's an ego thing with software engineers. "I'm no idiot, so I'm intermediate," "I've been doing software for decades so I'm advanced," and not realizing that it's about your experience with this technology, not your brain.

0 comments

lmilcin5y ago

Okay, so you propose all books should be written for noobs just in case noob picks up something for already advanced user?

That just doesn't make any sense.

Obviously, the author of the book can explain the book is really meant for a user with some prior knowledge and experience of the matter. If the reader ignores it it's not really a problem of the author to deal with.

My background is mathematics and, as an example, just recently wanted to pick up some control theory. It is absolutely normal I pick up a book I have not enough knowledge to even start reading. It is normal. You get something else, study it, then go back to the one you tried to understand.

amw-zero5y ago

Agreed. The one thing the Internet surely did was enable self-starters to have their fill of the entirety of human knowledge. But you have to have determination and patience. Some things might not make sense the first time you read them. I come back to things that I’ve already read time and time again, and get new insights out of them each time.

“Oh!!! That’s what they meant here!!!”

I say this once a month with something I’ve read 50 times. We need to reward people for having determination, not make every single book beginner friendly at the expense of deep material. We’re doing the world a huge disservice by limiting the potential of what people could be sharing.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse