4 ms·

> If you read this far hoping for an answer, then I’m sorry: I don’t have a simple one. This is a difficult problem to solve. The solution is too large for a si

> If you read this far hoping for an answer, then I’m sorry: I don’t have a simple one. This is a difficult problem to solve. The solution is too large for a single blog post, changes every day, and differs subtly for every project. Crazy idea, what if we found one of these people who writes these blog posts, an especially well vetted and knowledgeable one. Maybe even one who writes the frameworks and software these people are using. cough https://pragprog.com/book/phoenix14/programming-phoenix-1-4 https://pragprog.com/book/phoenix14/programming-phoenix-1-4 cough What if we took this person, and paid them money to write a bunch of blog posts about on topic, in a way that it read in a linear fashion? We could even maybe hire someone to help them, to proof read and make helpful suggestions. We could give the knowledgeable developer a year or so to write the blog posts, then print out the blog posts, bind them together with glue, and SELL IT! People could pay money for the well researched, well edited series of blog posts about a specific topic written by the expert. I think I'll name this blog-printed-out-onto-paper... a honkycat. After it's inventor. --- Sarcasm aside, I find people's insistence on googling and sifting through half-thought-out blog posts infuriating. I am a HUGE proponent of a well written book about a software product. Compare "Programming Elixir" to their free online book and documentation. It's night and day. And I can always look in the same place for reference, the book. Written by Dave Thomas. A book has: ( At least ) one author, one editor, and a publisher. All of these people work hundreds of hours to produce a useful manuscript. A blog post is something a script kiddie shits out because they're trying to get their first programming job. Yet people say the same thing: "A book?!? I can just find it on the internet" and do the same thing: "I'm sure I'm smart enough to just start writing this software without any prior experience in the language, or forethought" and make the same mistakes over and over. Skip the blog. Read a book.

aidenn0 8y ago
Finding a good book is not particularly easier than finding a good set of blog posts. While the quality of books is on average significantly better, finding books where the material was written in the past year is much harder. Particulary in the trendy JS world, where there might not be a good book for the stack you are using, and even when there is, you ask questions online and get responses that are roughly "It hasn't worked like that for 6 months, why are you trying to do it this way?" You give the example of the Phoenix book; I don't know if that's what this team was using. If it was not, the fact that there is a good book for that stack is not particularly relevant. If they were using Phoenix, then the fact that there is not a good book for most stacks would explain why they wouldn't consider looking for one for the stack they are using.
- shoo 8y ago
  > Particulary in the trendy JS world, where there might not be a good book for the stack you are using, and even when there is, you ask questions online and get responses that are roughly "It hasn't worked like that for 6 months, why are you trying to do it this way?" http://boringtechnology.club http://boringtechnology.club
maxxxxx 8y ago
One comment about books. I feel the quality of books has gone down a lot over the last decades. When you read K&R or Stroustroup's C++ books they are well written and give you a very deep understanding of how things work and why they are that way. Most modern books I have seen have 1000 pages and are just a bunch of recipes and screenshots without deeper understanding. Even user manuals from 30 years ago are excellent compared to what we have today. I am sure there are exceptions but they are hard to find.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  There were plenty of crap books about 30 years ago as well, it's just they are long forgotten now.
  - sixhobbits 8y ago
    Well it's really both. Definitely a great example of survivorship bias (we only remember the good books), but also it's so easy to publish a book these days compared to 30 years ago -- publishing is cheaper and "print-on-demand" means that tail-end publishers want quantity over quality. And publishers can do mass reachouts to potential tech authors all over the world (and they do -- if you have even a small blog with a "how to" tutorial on, you've likely been contacted by PacktPub, etc.).
Anthony-G 8y ago
I totally agree. Far too often, I come across people who are not willing to commit the time to learn something properly in the first place -- even if that area forms the bulk of their work. I come across the same reluctance to read any substantive resource, whether that be freely available online documentation, man pages, RFCs. Blog posts and Stack Exchange questions are great and have their place but shouldn't be the foundation of one's knowledge when the work requires an in-depth understanding of that system, technology, language or framework.

aidenn0 8y ago

Finding a good book is not particularly easier than finding a good set of blog posts. While the quality of books is on average significantly better, finding books where the material was written in the past year is much harder. Particulary in the trendy JS world, where there might not be a good book for the stack you are using, and even when there is, you ask questions online and get responses that are roughly "It hasn't worked like that for 6 months, why are you trying to do it this way?" You give the example of the Phoenix book; I don't know if that's what this team was using. If it was not, the fact that there is a good book for that stack is not particularly relevant. If they were using Phoenix, then the fact that there is not a good book for most stacks would explain why they wouldn't consider looking for one for the stack they are using.

shoo 8y ago
> Particulary in the trendy JS world, where there might not be a good book for the stack you are using, and even when there is, you ask questions online and get responses that are roughly "It hasn't worked like that for 6 months, why are you trying to do it this way?" http://boringtechnology.club http://boringtechnology.club

maxxxxx 8y ago

One comment about books. I feel the quality of books has gone down a lot over the last decades. When you read K&R or Stroustroup's C++ books they are well written and give you a very deep understanding of how things work and why they are that way. Most modern books I have seen have 1000 pages and are just a bunch of recipes and screenshots without deeper understanding. Even user manuals from 30 years ago are excellent compared to what we have today. I am sure there are exceptions but they are hard to find.

tonyedgecombe 8y ago
There were plenty of crap books about 30 years ago as well, it's just they are long forgotten now.
- sixhobbits 8y ago
  Well it's really both. Definitely a great example of survivorship bias (we only remember the good books), but also it's so easy to publish a book these days compared to 30 years ago -- publishing is cheaper and "print-on-demand" means that tail-end publishers want quantity over quality. And publishers can do mass reachouts to potential tech authors all over the world (and they do -- if you have even a small blog with a "how to" tutorial on, you've likely been contacted by PacktPub, etc.).

Anthony-G 8y ago

I totally agree. Far too often, I come across people who are not willing to commit the time to learn something properly in the first place -- even if that area forms the bulk of their work. I come across the same reluctance to read any substantive resource, whether that be freely available online documentation, man pages, RFCs. Blog posts and Stack Exchange questions are great and have their place but shouldn't be the foundation of one's knowledge when the work requires an in-depth understanding of that system, technology, language or framework.