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Hmm. I may be a crotchety old fart here, but I still keep my books. My active library here at work includes the following titles:
The C Programming Language by Kernighan and Ritchie
The C++ Programming Language 3rd edition by Stroustrup
Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform by Troelsen
Pro WPF in C# 2008 by MacDonald
Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats by Murray and VanRyper
Internetworking with TCP/IP, volumes I, II, and III by Comer and Stevens
The Bar Code Book 3rd edition by Palmer
plus a collection of the O'Reilly pocket guides/references. I keep these books because some of the them are out of print or current editions have omitted information I still need. In all cases I still use them. For example, I recently spent a couple of months with Internetworking with TCP/IP volume I open on my desk while I was debugging the TCP/IP 'stack' in a piece of embedded software.
Besides, the monasteries will need paper books after the Singularity and the monoAI has taken all programming information into itself.
Software Zen: delete this;
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When i was in tech support i learned from a guy who was about to retire. I used to ask him how they did the job before google, but he'd always shut me down with an angry "Hey!" like he didn't want to talk about it.
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My 10c worth: We expected to, and were expected to, know not only what to do, but why to do it exactly that way. Or stated differently: We knew the inner workings of the mechanisms we used. Always make sure that you are familiar with the layer immediately below the one you are working on! (You can't go all the way down to the transistors, but go at least one level down!)
Of course that required resources and efforts (and use of books with thorough explanations), but it paid back: We made much more "good" and "correct" use of the mechanisms offered.
Younger colleagues are usually very good at telling me that "the second parameter should be 4". So what does that 4 mean? Why not 3 or 5? No idea, but that's what is used in this code snippet I found when googling, and it works with 4, not with 3 or 5! ... I am never satisfied with that kind of "coding by trial and error", but I see a lot of it around me. If it works, don't ask how it works! When my younger, "helping" colleague has left, I start searching for explanation of that second parameter - if necessary, I buy a book.
This is of course not a real example. Real examples would be like how OO languages have implemented abstract classes, multiple inheritance etc. How interrupts work. Locking mechanisms. Switch statements...
When you know the inner workings, by heart, to a much larger degree you need not google up that code snippet to tell you "for some reason it works with 4". You would know why 4 is the right value.
About 25 years ago, I participated in an EU project focusing on "Just In Time learning": If information can be fetched when you need it, you need not spend time learning it. We can save lots of resources spent on educating people that way. People may be deaf and dumb if we can give them what they need when they need it, more or less as list of detailed instructions. ... Obviously, the EU project didn't say that they wanted people to be deaf and dumb, but that is what I saw in their philosophy. (So why was I in that project??) That project never made a great success, but Google more or less provides information in the way that the EU project was talking about.
Pick up some information about Bloom's model of learning (usually referred to as "the Bloom Taxonomy"), structured in levels from plain repetition up to critical assessment. Information you fetch through google doesn't go very high on the Bloom ladder: You see information reproduced and rephrased, but even the level of comprehending it is poorly supported by google. You can see small elements of application of knowledge (like code snippets showing that it works if the second parameter set to 4), but that doesn't count as "applying knowledge" when there is no comprehension. Forget about the analysis, synthesis and assessment levels; you could in principle find elements of it by googling, but that's not how people google.
(You might find some on the Internet, such as the TED talks and publicly available university lectures, but that is something else than googling!)
So I am a little worried. My generation considers an "expert" to be someone who master even the highest Bloom levels of his field. The Google generation are experts at the two lower levels, and they handle the third level reasonably well. ... Of course: University graduates fare reasonably well at level 4 and 5, at least in subjects they treated as students. But for new subjects, I see them revert to level 3. We did not, because we didn't have google, so the only way to do level 3, applying, was to get a textbook that also gave us strong elements of the analysis and synthesis levels, maybe even assessment.
And that is how we managed without google.
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Nice... And they think they understand it.
Yeah, I'm writing my fourth book about a complicated subject and wonder if anyone will read any of them. Genetics For A New Human Ecology
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Some may have long answer. Mine, books + a whole lot frustrations.
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I'll use WPF as an example of why 4" thick programming books can still be useful. I bought and read one when first learning WPF to get an understanding of all of the features. However, while coding it's quicker to find a snippet online than it is to look it up in the huge tome. If I hadn't read the book, I wouldn't know what to Google!
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LOL!!!
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They should consider ePub hunh?
Possibly hit youTube up for the equivalent; don't always need to switch to Geico to save a lot of money.
I was unaware of that...
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Is Yogi's picnic basket loaded for bear?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Let us paws and consider:
If Yogi were Irish and consumed the basket's contents, would qualify as hyberniate?
Don't scowl; just grin and bear it.
Ravings en masse^ |
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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If Yogi were Irish, you are sure to find a bottle of whiskey in the basket.
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And what finer way, along with a lusty Colleen, would you want to spend a fine day in the woods?
Ravings en masse^ |
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"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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He's too grizzly to do something like that.
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And is Nagy's one loaded of beer?
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I think you made a Boo-boo, it was picinic baskets Yogi wanted.
Signature ready for installation. Please Reboot now.
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BOOM!
You got it, @Lopatir!!
The best way to improve Windows is run it on a Mac.
The best way to bring a Mac to its knees is to run Windows on it.
~ my brother Jeff
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Only a true basket case would ask!
... such stuff as dreams are made on
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Quote: A-tisket a-tasket
A green and yellow basket
I wrote a letter to my love
And on the way I dropped it
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It's indeed a grizzly scene when he's done with said baskets, certainly he's no sloth, but he may be bi-polar. Boo-boo's an enabler who seems to panda to Yogi's every whim.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Overbearing, indeed, is the torchbearer's unbearable crossbearing task of bearishly forebearing bearhugs from other upbearers who get their bearings mixed up.
The best way to improve Windows is run it on a Mac.
The best way to bring a Mac to its knees is to run Windows on it.
~ my brother Jeff
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Looks like you've beared your soul, too bad it won't have bearly any bearing on what I believe.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Ussuri'd be the Spectacled one, indeed, to have Ursinae thing or two caniform onscreen here?
The best way to improve Windows is run it on a Mac.
The best way to bring a Mac to its knees is to run Windows on it.
~ my brother Jeff
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I could answer that, but then I'd bruin it for everyone else.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Atlas you admit to Ursid of the story, but if you were on Marsican not Gobi-ond one more thought.
The best way to improve Windows is run it on a Mac.
The best way to bring a Mac to its knees is to run Windows on it.
~ my brother Jeff
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And still it ain't over 'til it's over.
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