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But boy, is it refreshing to get away from all of that telling, telling, telling for a while. I often find telling comes about when there is no ground truth or
by tel 13y ago
But boy, is it refreshing to get away from all of that telling, telling, telling for a while.
I often find telling comes about when there is no ground truth or confidence in a field. The author must advise because there's no certainty that if they just showed you what they knew you would arrive in the same place as they.
Mathematics does a lot of telling too, but the best books don't need to as much. They just present things and let you fill in the missing details. It's almost-but-not-quite the confidence of fiction, where a good author shows and doesn't tell because the things they're trying to share are just too large to be simply explained.
I've also found the best CS books don't have to tell. I was recently reading the Reasoned Schemer and I immediately came to love the style they wrote it in. The author and the "reader" are just exploring something together at whatever rate makes sense. It's one of the few CS books I'd want to read over again.
- koblenski 13y agoThanks for the tip on the Reasoned Schemer. It was on my book list, so I'll have to bump it up to the top. Sounds like I'll enjoy it.
- fractallyte 13y agoThis is the 'Programmed Learning' style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_learning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_learning). (It's what led me to 'The Little Lisper', in the same series as 'The Reasoned Schemer'). Another excellent example is Engineering Mathematics, by Ken Stroud (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Stroud http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Stroud). I used this at college, and have always loved the style: short 'frames' of explanation and examples, with questions leading onto the next frame, building confidence and skill with each bite-sized step.
- tel 13y agoOoh, thanks for the link! I'm interested in trying to write a bit in that style so it'll be nice to see a few more sources.
- lnanek2 13y agoOrson Scott Card could do a lot of telling if he wanted. He's actually pretty fiercely conservative and anti-gay, for example. That said, I've read the books, really enjoyed them, and wouldn't have realized if I didn't know. It's pretty amazing how he keeps it out of the books and doesn't just write tea party rantings constantly or something. Telling people isn't a good way to convince them anyway, I suppose.
- tel 13y agoYeah. I focused on a quote that seemed to be more about reading than Ender's Game in particular. I remember reading it when I was young and being so influenced by it... and then slowly rejecting all of the things I thought I had learned from it as I grew up. I'm afraid to read it again because I feel like it's likely to be a young kid's Ayn Rand—powerfully compelling in a selfish way that speaks so much to a young kid having trouble fitting in and seeking acceptance through competency. And then I'm afraid that the nastier side that may seep through will echo a lot of the things I've learned about OSC as a person in the intervening years. He doesn't sound much like someone I respect, and while I don't believe that I must respect an author to get something from their work... I don't think it's an easy process.