3 ms·

It's an oddity. How did it get published? How does the author manage to maintain a professional career? NB the person writing the blog had bought a copy, so i

by theoh 8y ago

It's an oddity. How did it get published? How does the author manage to maintain a professional career? NB the person writing the blog had bought a copy, so it's effectively a warning—and a negative review. Nothing inexplicable about that.

ebullientocelot 8y ago
I tried googling around for Matthew Simon and couldn't find anything, even with San Jose State University added to the search terms (found from "Look Inside" on Amazon for the book--worth a look by itself). I'm a bit disappointed, was hoping for a zany blog or old school static site to enjoy.
- booleandilemma 8y ago
  If you’re in the mood for something zany and tech related there’s always Fabian Pascal: http://www.dbdebunk.com/2018/07/lenin-trotsky-data-management-and.html?m=1 http://www.dbdebunk.com/2018/07/lenin-trotsky-data-managemen...
jamesrcole 8y ago
FWIW, the reason it didn't seem to me worth mentioning is that it seems the kind of book that no-one would get unless they'd seen it recommended.
- theoh 8y ago
  The author of the blog post bought it based on a description in a catalog, so evidently it seemed promising enough at least to them, and by the same token, worth reporting on. So there's no mystery about why the blog author felt it was worth making this post. Curiosity value aside, buying an advanced textbook on spec based on the specific topics it promises to cover doesn't seem that uncommon, particularly if you are somehow isolated.
  - jamesrcole 8y ago
    IMO hardly anyone is going to purchase or even pay attention to something unless they've seen some positive recommendations for it. In a world of information-overload, I don't think it helps to call attention to things that aren't worth other people's time.
    - theoh 8y ago
      OK, I get that you object to the blogger "surfacing" this book at all. More generally, though, a lot of people pay attention to value cues like the simple fact that something has been professionally published. With books, I'm sure you would agree that there are multiple filters that people apply. The general availability of a book attests to the fact that it passed some kind of quality control, however feeble. The general condition when it comes to reviewing is that the products are out there anyway, so both positive and negative reviews are appropriate. The tradition of literary book reviews (e.g. the NYRB, LRB) is to turn the review into an timely essay, maybe cover a few recent releases, express an opinion, pass on the most interesting facts etc. The point is to make the review a self-contained literary work, capable of being read for its own sake, for information or for pleasure. I think that's what this blog post does, it takes something curious and makes an entertaining story out of it. You might think that this isn't "worth other people's time", in the sense that it doesn't advance an alternative, more relevant approach to covering the book's subject matter. But the review is potentially worth their time if it sheds light on anything (academic eccentricity, the importance of typesetting in scholarly work, anxieties about systemic racism in 21st C academic writing, etc.) There's another discussion to be had about fields where negative reviews are rare, like visual art. In that case, publishing any review at all does serve to draw attention to/advertise/"surface" the artwork in question. Critics aren't really able to distance themselves from the world of artists and curators, so they can't really say anything too negative. But that's a bit of a digression. The book might not be worth people's time as a CS text. That doesn't mean the blog post isn't worth their time as a reflection on other phenomena. Underwood Dudley wrote multiple books about mathematical cranks. Cranks get a bad press for wasting mathematicians' time and being impossible to convince of the errors in their work. But isn't the phenomenon of crank culture interesting, and couldn't it potentially teach us something about human nature?
- gweinberg 8y ago
  I saw things the same way as you. There are millions of books out there, most of them are pretty worthless. Not much point in drawing attention to one book not worth reading. I was hoping for something more along the lines of 'this book looks at things from a unique viewpoint but it actually makes sense'.
  - dan-robertson 8y ago
    I think books on academic topics like this are typically not that numerous (eg about a dozen on this sort of introductory formal languages and automata), and as they don’t really make money for the author they are typically written by academics who either want there to be course material for some undergraduate course they are teaching or by academics who want to teach other academics/grad students about their field. I would also argue with your point about most books being worthless. All books from an actual publisher will have been read by someone who has decided that the book will likely make money (and so should be printed), and that it will make money because it is worth money to the people who buy it. Eg I think the author of the article would probably consider any of the other books on the subject to not be worthless. All fiction books can basically be considered to have entertainment value, in the same way that a movie has value even if you won’t make money from seeing it. There are books that many would consider worthless to themselves (eg books about advanced mathematics or some particular small region in history and space), and there are also books that many would consider worthless to any person (I suppose this is what you are referring to as worthless? Things that are more like terrible self-published fiction or conspiracy theory treatises). I think this is interesting because it is unusual to see the second category disguised as the first for mathematics textbooks. I think it is also interesting to wonder why the author wrote such a book and why they made the strange choices in it. I would certainly guess that the author is some kind of not-very-formal linguist rather than a mathematician. I suppose it is more common to see the second class of “worthless book” trying to look like history books than mathematics books.

by theoh 8y ago

ebullientocelot 8y ago

I tried googling around for Matthew Simon and couldn't find anything, even with San Jose State University added to the search terms (found from "Look Inside" on Amazon for the book--worth a look by itself). I'm a bit disappointed, was hoping for a zany blog or old school static site to enjoy.

booleandilemma 8y ago
If you’re in the mood for something zany and tech related there’s always Fabian Pascal: http://www.dbdebunk.com/2018/07/lenin-trotsky-data-management-and.html?m=1 http://www.dbdebunk.com/2018/07/lenin-trotsky-data-managemen...

jamesrcole 8y ago

FWIW, the reason it didn't seem to me worth mentioning is that it seems the kind of book that no-one would get unless they'd seen it recommended.

theoh 8y ago
The author of the blog post bought it based on a description in a catalog, so evidently it seemed promising enough at least to them, and by the same token, worth reporting on. So there's no mystery about why the blog author felt it was worth making this post. Curiosity value aside, buying an advanced textbook on spec based on the specific topics it promises to cover doesn't seem that uncommon, particularly if you are somehow isolated.
- jamesrcole 8y ago
  IMO hardly anyone is going to purchase or even pay attention to something unless they've seen some positive recommendations for it. In a world of information-overload, I don't think it helps to call attention to things that aren't worth other people's time.
  - theoh 8y ago
    OK, I get that you object to the blogger "surfacing" this book at all. More generally, though, a lot of people pay attention to value cues like the simple fact that something has been professionally published. With books, I'm sure you would agree that there are multiple filters that people apply. The general availability of a book attests to the fact that it passed some kind of quality control, however feeble. The general condition when it comes to reviewing is that the products are out there anyway, so both positive and negative reviews are appropriate. The tradition of literary book reviews (e.g. the NYRB, LRB) is to turn the review into an timely essay, maybe cover a few recent releases, express an opinion, pass on the most interesting facts etc. The point is to make the review a self-contained literary work, capable of being read for its own sake, for information or for pleasure. I think that's what this blog post does, it takes something curious and makes an entertaining story out of it. You might think that this isn't "worth other people's time", in the sense that it doesn't advance an alternative, more relevant approach to covering the book's subject matter. But the review is potentially worth their time if it sheds light on anything (academic eccentricity, the importance of typesetting in scholarly work, anxieties about systemic racism in 21st C academic writing, etc.) There's another discussion to be had about fields where negative reviews are rare, like visual art. In that case, publishing any review at all does serve to draw attention to/advertise/"surface" the artwork in question. Critics aren't really able to distance themselves from the world of artists and curators, so they can't really say anything too negative. But that's a bit of a digression. The book might not be worth people's time as a CS text. That doesn't mean the blog post isn't worth their time as a reflection on other phenomena. Underwood Dudley wrote multiple books about mathematical cranks. Cranks get a bad press for wasting mathematicians' time and being impossible to convince of the errors in their work. But isn't the phenomenon of crank culture interesting, and couldn't it potentially teach us something about human nature?
gweinberg 8y ago
I saw things the same way as you. There are millions of books out there, most of them are pretty worthless. Not much point in drawing attention to one book not worth reading. I was hoping for something more along the lines of 'this book looks at things from a unique viewpoint but it actually makes sense'.
- dan-robertson 8y ago
  I think books on academic topics like this are typically not that numerous (eg about a dozen on this sort of introductory formal languages and automata), and as they don’t really make money for the author they are typically written by academics who either want there to be course material for some undergraduate course they are teaching or by academics who want to teach other academics/grad students about their field. I would also argue with your point about most books being worthless. All books from an actual publisher will have been read by someone who has decided that the book will likely make money (and so should be printed), and that it will make money because it is worth money to the people who buy it. Eg I think the author of the article would probably consider any of the other books on the subject to not be worthless. All fiction books can basically be considered to have entertainment value, in the same way that a movie has value even if you won’t make money from seeing it. There are books that many would consider worthless to themselves (eg books about advanced mathematics or some particular small region in history and space), and there are also books that many would consider worthless to any person (I suppose this is what you are referring to as worthless? Things that are more like terrible self-published fiction or conspiracy theory treatises). I think this is interesting because it is unusual to see the second category disguised as the first for mathematics textbooks. I think it is also interesting to wonder why the author wrote such a book and why they made the strange choices in it. I would certainly guess that the author is some kind of not-very-formal linguist rather than a mathematician. I suppose it is more common to see the second class of “worthless book” trying to look like history books than mathematics books.