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> I did not say "not focus as much on deep understanding". I am only talking about exposure to all sorts of concepts/ideas. This discussion started because the

> I did not say "not focus as much on deep understanding". I am only talking about exposure to all sorts of concepts/ideas. This discussion started because the person you replied to was saying "[I was] dissapointed with myself for not taking more notes ... This quote made me feel better about simply reading, getting whatever I get out of it". You replied "This is the way to approach it, particularly in these times when knowledge is so vast and there is so much to read." This response, to me, appears to be based on the assumption that because there is a vast amount of knowledge available, one must read more of it and keep up with it simply because there is more of it. > I think maybe you are confusing my comments with somebody else's and meant this as a reply to somebody else? I have not mentioned note-taking in any of my comments in this thread. See my comment above, this started with the person your replied to talking about giving up on note taking while reading. > What Reading widely/broadly enables is to see interconnections/interplay between various subjects the very existence of which you might have been unaware of earlier. I would counter that one does not see the existence of such connections with only superficial understandings. For example, most undergraduate students struggle, even after many courses, to connect the expected solution to a problem set up for them; to say nothing of being able to draw connections between subjects. Yes there is great value in being able to go between many domains and to tie them together, but it is not immediately obvious why this would be more valuable than digging deeply in a smaller number > This is particularly true in today's times where there is so much knowledge that it is impossible to go deep into everything. See my point from above about the lack of imperative for reading more simply because there is more to read. > if you were to study this "just in case" and even if you don't use it rigorously the very act of knowing it will allow you think about program construction in a whole new light which will give you superior insight and increase your effectiveness/productivity immeasurably. I agree that you can't study something "just in time" if you don't know that it exists. The issue is that a great many things can (or claim to) "give you superior insight and increase your effectiveness/productivity immeasurably". You don't have time to learn about all of them. And when choosing to pick what to look at next, I argue that searching for the thing related to your current problem is more valuable knowledge than a that which you get "just in case".

rramadass 3y ago
> This discussion started because the person you replied to was saying "[I was] dissappointed with myself for not taking more notes ... This quote made me feel better about simply reading, getting whatever I get out of it". You replied "This is the way to approach it, particularly in these times when knowledge is so vast and there is so much to read. No, you seem to have conveniently ignored the particular phrase of the parent's comment to which i was commenting, to wit; "simply reading, getting whatever I get out of it, and trusting that I’ve gained some perspective," It is right there at the beginning of my comment and i am expanding only on this sentiment and nothing else. Hence i am not sure where you are getting your other assumptions from. If i had wanted to expand on note-taking i would have explicitly called out the parent's relevant phrases which i did not. > I would counter that one does not see the existence of such connections with only superficial understandings. Hard Disagree, you can definitely see some connections with even "superficial" understanding however fuzzy/incomplete they might be. For example, i can tell a programmer to think of the types of his program variables as a set and the variable itself ranging over the collection of values in this set. Next i can tell him to think of his logical conditions using these variables as logical predicates establishing a mathematical relation between various values amongst the above sets. With just this "superficial" knowledge of Sets, Cartesian Product, Relations and Predicates he can now see a connection between Mathematics and his Program enabling him to come up with better and more comprehensive Pre/Post conditions and write "correct" code. > Yes there is great value in being able to go between many domains and to tie them together, but it is not immediately obvious why this would be more valuable than digging deeply in a smaller number This should be obvious by now; you are increasing the size of your "known unknowns" and hopefully decreasing the size of "unknown unknowns". > You don't have time to learn about all of them. And when choosing to pick what to look at next, I argue that searching for the thing related to your current problem is more valuable knowledge than a that which you get "just in case" Of course Time/Energy are limited and universal constraints on everything a Human can do; that is not an argument. If you are working towards something specific, your study should be targeted but not necessarily limited to it. This is where "Reading broad/wide" is needed. As an example, you have loads of Web programmers today who limit themselves to only using higher level frameworks/libraries to write distributed apps but have no clue (not even "superficial") of the underlying TCP/IP stack. Having some idea of the application layer HTTP protocol and its interactions with the underlying TCP/IP stack is a must for any distributed app developer but because things have been abstracted and encapsulated so nicely many don't even bother getting a "superficial" knowledge of these fundamental technologies thus severely limiting their effectiveness troubleshooting when things go wrong.

rramadass 3y ago

> This discussion started because the person you replied to was saying "[I was] dissappointed with myself for not taking more notes ... This quote made me feel better about simply reading, getting whatever I get out of it". You replied "This is the way to approach it, particularly in these times when knowledge is so vast and there is so much to read. No, you seem to have conveniently ignored the particular phrase of the parent's comment to which i was commenting, to wit; "simply reading, getting whatever I get out of it, and trusting that I’ve gained some perspective," It is right there at the beginning of my comment and i am expanding only on this sentiment and nothing else. Hence i am not sure where you are getting your other assumptions from. If i had wanted to expand on note-taking i would have explicitly called out the parent's relevant phrases which i did not. > I would counter that one does not see the existence of such connections with only superficial understandings. Hard Disagree, you can definitely see some connections with even "superficial" understanding however fuzzy/incomplete they might be. For example, i can tell a programmer to think of the types of his program variables as a set and the variable itself ranging over the collection of values in this set. Next i can tell him to think of his logical conditions using these variables as logical predicates establishing a mathematical relation between various values amongst the above sets. With just this "superficial" knowledge of Sets, Cartesian Product, Relations and Predicates he can now see a connection between Mathematics and his Program enabling him to come up with better and more comprehensive Pre/Post conditions and write "correct" code. > Yes there is great value in being able to go between many domains and to tie them together, but it is not immediately obvious why this would be more valuable than digging deeply in a smaller number This should be obvious by now; you are increasing the size of your "known unknowns" and hopefully decreasing the size of "unknown unknowns". > You don't have time to learn about all of them. And when choosing to pick what to look at next, I argue that searching for the thing related to your current problem is more valuable knowledge than a that which you get "just in case" Of course Time/Energy are limited and universal constraints on everything a Human can do; that is not an argument. If you are working towards something specific, your study should be targeted but not necessarily limited to it. This is where "Reading broad/wide" is needed. As an example, you have loads of Web programmers today who limit themselves to only using higher level frameworks/libraries to write distributed apps but have no clue (not even "superficial") of the underlying TCP/IP stack. Having some idea of the application layer HTTP protocol and its interactions with the underlying TCP/IP stack is a must for any distributed app developer but because things have been abstracted and encapsulated so nicely many don't even bother getting a "superficial" knowledge of these fundamental technologies thus severely limiting their effectiveness troubleshooting when things go wrong.