4 ms·

I think I'm too ADD for this. Here's how I read programming books: 1. Open Table of Contents and find topic I'm interested in. 2. Open page of topic. Read abou

I think I'm too ADD for this. Here's how I read programming books: 1. Open Table of Contents and find topic I'm interested in. 2. Open page of topic. Read about it. Start coding along. 3. Close book. I feel like I can't really read them any other way. I haven't read one cover to cover in years, and that was when I was doing tech editing for publishers and I had to read the whole thing. Am I alone? Do most of you read the whole thing like a novel?

DigitalJack 14y ago
I pretty much do what you do, although it often leads to a rabbit trail of backtracking to pick up prerequisite concepts.
- pivo 14y ago
  I do the same, and it drives me crazy. This is one habit I've been trying really hard to break in the last few years.
  - Dylanlacey 14y ago
    Interestingly, if you try to force yourself to read the book from cover to cover, and you find it painful and dreary and you have to FORCE yourself to read every single page, that's a pretty good simulation of what ADHD feels like when doing an uninteresting task. So, perhaps you could try checking out some of the advice for ADHD peeps and seeing if some of the non-illegal strategies work for you.
martinced 14y ago
I do both. At first I open the ToC and go read the few stuff I do absolutely want to read about and "can't wait" to read. Then I force myself to read the entire book like a novel at least once. One of the great thing about reading it at least once is that once a while you'll read something you don't really think you'd need right away or that won't necessarily "click through" but, later on, you'll remember "seeing it somewhere in the book". And bam, you take the book's ToC or index and find back what you're after. I've done it countless time with "Java Concurrency in Practice" for example. At first I read what I wanted to read the most. Then I read like a novel. Then now I use it as a "reference". (most of the book, just like most Java books, can be dumped to trash now that I'm working with a language using lockless concurrency but that is another topic ; )

DigitalJack 14y ago

I pretty much do what you do, although it often leads to a rabbit trail of backtracking to pick up prerequisite concepts.

pivo 14y ago
I do the same, and it drives me crazy. This is one habit I've been trying really hard to break in the last few years.
- Dylanlacey 14y ago
  Interestingly, if you try to force yourself to read the book from cover to cover, and you find it painful and dreary and you have to FORCE yourself to read every single page, that's a pretty good simulation of what ADHD feels like when doing an uninteresting task. So, perhaps you could try checking out some of the advice for ADHD peeps and seeing if some of the non-illegal strategies work for you.

martinced 14y ago

I do both. At first I open the ToC and go read the few stuff I do absolutely want to read about and "can't wait" to read. Then I force myself to read the entire book like a novel at least once. One of the great thing about reading it at least once is that once a while you'll read something you don't really think you'd need right away or that won't necessarily "click through" but, later on, you'll remember "seeing it somewhere in the book". And bam, you take the book's ToC or index and find back what you're after. I've done it countless time with "Java Concurrency in Practice" for example. At first I read what I wanted to read the most. Then I read like a novel. Then now I use it as a "reference". (most of the book, just like most Java books, can be dumped to trash now that I'm working with a language using lockless concurrency but that is another topic ; )