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

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).