Because it's much easier to collect a baseball card than to play professional baseball. It should have been about understanding the collective experience of pro

Because it's much easier to collect a baseball card than to play professional baseball. It should have been about understanding the collective experience of programmers, not about showing dominance through having a collection. The collector mentality seems to have gripped algorithms. You shouldn't read algorithms to be able to regurgitate them. If you can apply an algorithm, that's good. But if you can learn from the techniques used to construct and analyze them, that is the underlying knowledge. Collecting baseball cards is a fine hobby. The point of the analogy isn't that collecting things or facts is bad. What's bad is the mistake of thinking that collecting by itself gives you the skills of a practitioner. Feynman's knowing anecdote: https://blogs.ubc.ca/edutara/feynmans-knowing-anecdote/ https://blogs.ubc.ca/edutara/feynmans-knowing-anecdote/