A book is worth a thousand tutorials

D

drhowarddrfine

I skimmed a few tutorials and the Wikipedia page. This was basically a waste of time...

Now, all this information was in the tutorials, but none of them gave the correct sequence of examples, the right level of detail for me to immediately grasp what I needed to grasp. I continually have this experience when learning a new concept: the single good reference [a book] is so far superior to random tutorials and documentation that the online stuff feels roughly useless.
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I also have books that are not very helpful where the author spends multiple pages to explain a simple concept that it could be done in a couple a pages, and worst sometimes it's even more confusing or just not well explained. It depends on what you seek and what you expect.
For me it is a matter of talent, explaining things is a very difficult task, not everybody can do it, you've got it or not, whether it's a book, a blog post, a tutorial, a documentation or even a man page.
 
For every good book, there are many bad ones, but you will never gain the depth and breadth of knowledge in any tutorial that you would gain in a book.
 
50/50.
There are very murky and heavy books. There are good books, there are good authors who
explain things without snot.
But books quickly become outdated. If you buy a paper book, then in 5 years it is 30%-40% waste paper.
Books on "hardware" generally become outdated in 2-3 years.
I have a paper book about FreeBSD 5.0.
I read little useful information there. This book on version 5.0 is very different from 14.2.
The best thing is the notes.
The best thing is your notes, which you wrote yourself. With a pencil, ink or ballpoint pen.
I keep such a notebook. Then you don't need manuals, wikis, etc.
Even if there is no access to online manuals, your paper friend will always come to the rescue.

This forum is a good source of knowledge. It has almost everything for me. Almost everything.
This forum is better for me than 60% of the books on FreeBSD.
Why? Because I have never seen a book describe bad situations so clearly, colorfully and practically
as on this forum.
The author of a book on FreeBSD is unlikely to write about the shortcomings with such acuteness as here.
Otherwise, it will be an Anti-FreeBSD book.
The book writes about the shortcomings, but they are described very, very poorly.
 
drhowarddrfine said:
For every good book, there are many bad ones, but you will never gain the depth and breadth of knowledge in any tutorial that you would gain in a book.
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I would say it depends.
You can have a very length, rich in detail tutorial, and you can have a lengthy book.
For example courses, which I also believe are some sort of tutorials if I am not wrong, like C, C#, C++, etc. on the geeksforgeeks website are very great, and you are forced to actually participate in some form or another, not only watching.
Judging from my experience they are almost to detailed.

gotnull said:
For me it is a matter of talent, explaining things is a very difficult task, not everybody can do it, you've got it or not, whether it's a book, a blog post, a tutorial, a documentation or even a man page.
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I agree, I think the best starting point for explaining something is to omit hard to grasp words, and a clear sentence structure without many ifs and elses, ands, and ors.
And a starting, and end point.
Breaking something down in steps could also be a great way, to explain something.
 
USerID said:
The best thing is your notes, which you wrote yourself.
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And the notes you wrote were based on ... a book.

A tutorial will be based on one or a couple of points. A book on a topic will be in depth and detailed. If you don't want to thoroughly understand a subject completely, then a book is not for you.
 
A tutorial will be based on one or a couple of points. A book on a topic will be in depth and detailed. If you don't want to thoroughly understand a subject completely, then a book is not for you.
Click to expand...
I like books, and especially the very detailed ones.
But I cannot befriend myself with books regarding the Vulkan API.
I searched, and read some books, but I did not find a detailed book about it, if there is one, or two of them, I would be grateful to receive their title so, I can read them.

Although everyone learns different, learning by doing seems to be still the best method to keep learned things.
 
"Adeo facilius est multa facere quam diu."

"So much easier is it to do many things than to do one thing for a long time continuously."
--
"Et hercule quantumlibet secreta studia contulerint, est tamen proprius quidam fori profectus, alia lux, alia veri discriminis facies, plusque, si separes, usus sine doctrina quam citra usum doctrina valeat."

"To say the truth, whatever improvement private study may produce, there is still a peculiar advantage at tendant on our appearance in the forum, where the light is different and there is an appearance of real responsibility quite different from the fictitious cases of the schools. If we estimate the two separately, practice without learning will be of more avail than learning without practice."

Quintilian, ca. 35 - 100
 
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