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I agree with this. I read the top comments before the article and went in totally expecting someone just dismissing books as useless, by the end though, I got t

I agree with this. I read the top comments before the article and went in totally expecting someone just dismissing books as useless, by the end though, I got the same takeaway as you, the author was stating the need to immerse yourself in a subject to truly learn it and that hastily reading through a single book on a subject is not something you should expect to give you full understanding of it. Not that books are useless or you shouldn't read them.

mindcrime 6y ago
I agree with this. I read the top comments before the article and went in totally expecting someone just dismissing books as useless, by the end though, I got the same takeaway as you, I think part of the problem is that the author of TFA sorta "buried the lede" and didn't really get to the point until very near the end. I suspect a lot of people got bored and quit reading before that point. Honestly, I did, and it wasn't until my second reading that I got what he was saying near the end, which is admittedly a somewhat different take.
starfallg 6y ago
Isn't the title pure clickbait then? "Books work, but they're not the complete solution" is a much better title, but then us as the audience don't need to read a multi-page Medium article type rant to know that.
- grawprog 6y ago
  Pretty much, it's also vague and ambiguous to begin with. My first question even just seeing it was, work with what? Being HN, I figured it to be something related to programming or something rather just a general acknowledgement that 'learning takes time' To be honest, you could replace 'book' with 'video', 'article', 'podcast' or any other medium people learn from and the article could stand pretty much as is and give the same general point. The whole article could probably be more effectively re-written with the focus on time and learning, using different media as well as books as an example and make the point stronger. By choosing books as a focus, the author loses the main point and doesn't really get to it until the end, making the article, as you and other commenters pointed out, ranty and a slog to read through.

mindcrime 6y ago

I agree with this. I read the top comments before the article and went in totally expecting someone just dismissing books as useless, by the end though, I got the same takeaway as you, I think part of the problem is that the author of TFA sorta "buried the lede" and didn't really get to the point until very near the end. I suspect a lot of people got bored and quit reading before that point. Honestly, I did, and it wasn't until my second reading that I got what he was saying near the end, which is admittedly a somewhat different take.

starfallg 6y ago

Isn't the title pure clickbait then? "Books work, but they're not the complete solution" is a much better title, but then us as the audience don't need to read a multi-page Medium article type rant to know that.

grawprog 6y ago
Pretty much, it's also vague and ambiguous to begin with. My first question even just seeing it was, work with what? Being HN, I figured it to be something related to programming or something rather just a general acknowledgement that 'learning takes time' To be honest, you could replace 'book' with 'video', 'article', 'podcast' or any other medium people learn from and the article could stand pretty much as is and give the same general point. The whole article could probably be more effectively re-written with the focus on time and learning, using different media as well as books as an example and make the point stronger. By choosing books as a focus, the author loses the main point and doesn't really get to it until the end, making the article, as you and other commenters pointed out, ranty and a slog to read through.