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Ask HN: Do hackers (you) read books cover to cover?

14 points by digamber_kamat 16y ago

I realized today that I have purchased 9 books last one month. 8 are about technology and 9th one is "Viral loop". But I realized that I haven't read any of these books from page 1 to page last. Reading cover to cover would have been helpful but if I look at the trade-off between time spent and knowledge gained, I always like to read random chapters on need basis. It takes me a year to eventually go through every chapter. Do you guys read the books same way ?

dutchrapley 16y ago
The real answer is, "It depends." It really depends on where you are with your learning. When I was younger and was getting into the industry, I would read books cover to cover b/c the various topics intrigued me (sql, databases, javascript, etc.) and I wanted to learn about them. Today, my reading habits have changed. For just about anything, you can get a good primer (for free) online. Documentation for most products/projects are 10-fold better than what they were 5-10 years ago. Sometimes books are still necessary, especially in regards to learning a new programming language. You'll get way more coverage and if you read several books on a particular language, you can learn several approaches. I wouldn't recommend buying a ton of technology books at once as some of them may become outdated before you get to reading them. Learn as much as you can, without buying a book, until it hurts. Then, go to your local book store and compare different books on the same subject (also compare reviews) and buy the one that you think will be the most beneficial. That's the approach I take.
Travis 16y ago
Books that I read for pleasure, I tend to read all the way through. Fiction, or Malcolm Gladwell type stuff. Everything else (technical books, what it sounds like you're talking about above...) I read until I find something useful and applicable. At that point, I ditch the book and try some stuff out. If that "stuff" works out, I follow the thread. If not, I either return to the book or pick up another one.
trbecker 16y ago
It depends. For technical books, yes. For fiction books, I always read it cover-to-cover (skipping the forewords). But there's one exception: I've read both books by Robert Love (Linux Kernel Development and Linux System Programming) from cover to cover.
justin_vanw 16y ago
I've yelled at people for asking smarter questions than that. Some people read cover to cover, some will skim. Being a hacker has nothing to do with this, any more than being a chef would. Anyway, personally, I almost always read books cover to cover. If it isn't a 'good' enough book to do that, I stop reading it and move on to a less shitty book. In my experience, authors basically never jabber like morons, then suddenly have something really important to say, then back to jabbering. Plus, any good book will progress, explaining concepts as they are introduced, so your assumptions about what a term means or what any implications are on chapter 20 might be completely out of whack and stupid, which you would realize if you had read chapters 1-19. (This just happened to me regarding a book on futures and options trading).
- hasenj 16y ago
  > Being a hacker has nothing to do with this Well, it could; you never know. The point of the question is to see if it does or not.
- digamber_kamat 16y ago
  >Anyway, personally, I almost always read books cover to cover. If it isn't a 'good' enough book to do that, I stop reading it and move on to a less shitty book. You seem to be doing something different than most of the people here. No wonder you feel like yelling as well.
tsuyoshi 16y ago
If you are able to read random parts of a book on an as-needed basis, then it's probably a reference book. Of course you don't usually read something like that straight through. Most books are difficult to read in random order, though. Maybe you aren't reading many non-reference books.
mindcrime 16y ago
As you might guess, the answer is "it depends." I tend to read fiction cover to cover, and if it's short enough (the average Dean Koontz novel, for example) I often read it one sitting. A Stephen King novel like Under The Dome might take 2-3 sittings. Non-fiction is a different story. I tend to read business books cover to cover (relative to a span of time, like say a week or two), but I interleave reading multiple books so that, at any given time, I have 3-4 books I'm in the middle of reading. Which one I pick up to read a few pages of on any given evening when I have time to read just comes down to a whim. Similar case with other non-fiction stuff... I have bookmarks stuffed in probably a couple of dozen books that are in some intermediate stage of being read. But sometimes one just catches my fancy and I knock it out in a few days (or whatever time-frame, depending on the length and difficulty.) The big exception are books that are basically just reference. A tutorial'ish book like Grails In Action I might go through almost cover to cover, but at some point when I've learned enough to start "doing stuff" I tend to start skipping around. Books like that I often never technically "finish." Other reference books I pick up, skip to the section I care about, read that part, then put it aside and never touch it again. For example, I'm skipping around in Mahout In Action now, focusing on the section on clustering. Sometimes I read just the part I need now then put the book in the "read this entire book later" pile. Then it just goes in the queue with all the other partially read books. So, following this system the time span I spend on any given book might range from 6-7 hours (like the last Dean Koontz novel I read) to 20+ years ( I think I started Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas at least that long ago, and it's still in the "come back and finish this later" pile.)

dutchrapley 16y ago

The real answer is, "It depends." It really depends on where you are with your learning. When I was younger and was getting into the industry, I would read books cover to cover b/c the various topics intrigued me (sql, databases, javascript, etc.) and I wanted to learn about them. Today, my reading habits have changed. For just about anything, you can get a good primer (for free) online. Documentation for most products/projects are 10-fold better than what they were 5-10 years ago. Sometimes books are still necessary, especially in regards to learning a new programming language. You'll get way more coverage and if you read several books on a particular language, you can learn several approaches. I wouldn't recommend buying a ton of technology books at once as some of them may become outdated before you get to reading them. Learn as much as you can, without buying a book, until it hurts. Then, go to your local book store and compare different books on the same subject (also compare reviews) and buy the one that you think will be the most beneficial. That's the approach I take.

Travis 16y ago

Books that I read for pleasure, I tend to read all the way through. Fiction, or Malcolm Gladwell type stuff. Everything else (technical books, what it sounds like you're talking about above...) I read until I find something useful and applicable. At that point, I ditch the book and try some stuff out. If that "stuff" works out, I follow the thread. If not, I either return to the book or pick up another one.

trbecker 16y ago

It depends. For technical books, yes. For fiction books, I always read it cover-to-cover (skipping the forewords). But there's one exception: I've read both books by Robert Love (Linux Kernel Development and Linux System Programming) from cover to cover.

justin_vanw 16y ago

I've yelled at people for asking smarter questions than that. Some people read cover to cover, some will skim. Being a hacker has nothing to do with this, any more than being a chef would. Anyway, personally, I almost always read books cover to cover. If it isn't a 'good' enough book to do that, I stop reading it and move on to a less shitty book. In my experience, authors basically never jabber like morons, then suddenly have something really important to say, then back to jabbering. Plus, any good book will progress, explaining concepts as they are introduced, so your assumptions about what a term means or what any implications are on chapter 20 might be completely out of whack and stupid, which you would realize if you had read chapters 1-19. (This just happened to me regarding a book on futures and options trading).

hasenj 16y ago
> Being a hacker has nothing to do with this Well, it could; you never know. The point of the question is to see if it does or not.
digamber_kamat 16y ago
>Anyway, personally, I almost always read books cover to cover. If it isn't a 'good' enough book to do that, I stop reading it and move on to a less shitty book. You seem to be doing something different than most of the people here. No wonder you feel like yelling as well.

tsuyoshi 16y ago

If you are able to read random parts of a book on an as-needed basis, then it's probably a reference book. Of course you don't usually read something like that straight through. Most books are difficult to read in random order, though. Maybe you aren't reading many non-reference books.

mindcrime 16y ago

As you might guess, the answer is "it depends." I tend to read fiction cover to cover, and if it's short enough (the average Dean Koontz novel, for example) I often read it one sitting. A Stephen King novel like Under The Dome might take 2-3 sittings. Non-fiction is a different story. I tend to read business books cover to cover (relative to a span of time, like say a week or two), but I interleave reading multiple books so that, at any given time, I have 3-4 books I'm in the middle of reading. Which one I pick up to read a few pages of on any given evening when I have time to read just comes down to a whim. Similar case with other non-fiction stuff... I have bookmarks stuffed in probably a couple of dozen books that are in some intermediate stage of being read. But sometimes one just catches my fancy and I knock it out in a few days (or whatever time-frame, depending on the length and difficulty.) The big exception are books that are basically just reference. A tutorial'ish book like Grails In Action I might go through almost cover to cover, but at some point when I've learned enough to start "doing stuff" I tend to start skipping around. Books like that I often never technically "finish." Other reference books I pick up, skip to the section I care about, read that part, then put it aside and never touch it again. For example, I'm skipping around in Mahout In Action now, focusing on the section on clustering. Sometimes I read just the part I need now then put the book in the "read this entire book later" pile. Then it just goes in the queue with all the other partially read books. So, following this system the time span I spend on any given book might range from 6-7 hours (like the last Dean Koontz novel I read) to 20+ years ( I think I started Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas at least that long ago, and it's still in the "come back and finish this later" pile.)