December 10, 2017 at 17:19How to Read Technical Literature: Quora, Reddit, and Hacker News Resident Tips
The technical literature can be different: from small thematic articles to serious reference books with a detailed description of functions and attributes. And each of these types solves different problems - it entertains, educates, and allows you to refresh a topic.
Today we will tell you what sources programmers, engineers and residents of thematic platforms (Stack Exchange, Stack Overflow, etc.) recommend contacting if you need to learn a new language or deepen your knowledge in any particular area. We will also give some of their recommendations on how to “work” with such literature. / Flickr / devin stein / cc
The technical literature includes not only books on programming theory or languages. This can include news on the topic, threads on specialized platforms, documentation, help and guides, someone else’s code and even corporate blogs (our example is on the 1cloud website ).
Each of these sources solves various problems: it simply entertains the reader or helps to find the answer to a specific question. For example, books about programming languages, algorithms and so on give you the opportunity to plunge into the desired area of knowledge. Newsletters and related news help keep you up to date and learn new technologies in the background. Blogs and forums allowfind out people's opinions about a particular problem, adopt their experience or just have fun. Threads on Hacker News, Stack Exchange, Reddit, etc. fall into the same category.
Another type of "technical literature" is program code. Reading and analyzing someone else's code allows you to learn from the mistakes of others. And reference books will help you learn the attributes of a function, the principles of its operation, or quickly refresh in your memory forgotten things.
Thus, different types of sources are suitable for different tasks. But no one reads literature, code, "from cover to cover" threads: books are often boughtas a desktop reference, and on specialized platforms like Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, people use the search - found the answer to their question, solved the problem. The undoubted advantage of interactive platforms is that you are not limited to already existing content - if you didn’t answer the question of interest, or if you don’t fully understand someone’s explanation, you can ask your own questions.
For example, in thisThe thread on the SO thread starter asked why array sorting makes its code six times faster. Community members told him about branch prediction algorithms, built circuits, drew analogies, and recommended books for further study. This question has become the most popular on the platform - the thread has collected more than a million views, and one of the plus plus answers is more than 26 thousand times.
Thus, the choice of specific sources depends on the goals and objectives that you plan to solve. What we will talk about later.
Mailing lists and blogs are suitable for this task. They are convenient to view in the morning with a cup of coffee or during a break at work. This does not require much effort and allows you to constantly be in the subject of recent events. For example, this site contains 50 of the best programming blogs on a variety of topics: from iOS development to web design, and here you will find 13 popular mailing lists. As an option - install a specialized application on your smartphone.
Additionally, developer and mathematician Wayne Uejio recommends adding online ads from potential customers to your feed in order to better understand the situation on the labor market and the current needs of employers.
In order to clarify or refresh something specific, reference books, guides and help are suitable . After familiarization, you can, for example, write information to a piece of paper or create a GitHub repository, as did web developer James Harris. So you do not have to contact the help again and spend time on it.
In this case, one of the options are books. When choosing a book, it is important to read the annotation - it is believed that the first thousand words sets the basis for the entire book (and, at least, allows you to get acquainted with the style of the author). Therefore, the annotation and table of contents, like a litmus test, will help to formulate a general idea of whether this book is suitable for you now (does it contain answers to the necessary questions, are there many examples, does the author explain why to read his book and what knowledge you will get in in total), or maybe you should put it aside and switch to other publications.
Also, when choosing literature for studying new technologies, it is worth paying attention to thematic collections and digests compiled on the basis of recommendations from industry experts - most often they contain the most adequate materials verified by the community. For example, here are a few selections that we prepared in 1cloud: VPS digest , DNS digest , VPN digest .
At the same time, Hacker News users are advised to read several books in parallel so that you can look at the topic from “different angles” and create a more complete picture in your head. And this is true not only for books, but also for articles and blogs. For example, you can read an articleMonday Bowling’s blog author James Bowen on monk types at Haskell, while exploring one of GitHub’s explanations about how monads “reproduce”.
In addition, residents of HN offer to write notes , draw mental maps, as well as fix questions that arise during the reading, so that later you can look for answers in other sources. When we write by hand, we better understand and remember important material.
Linguistics professor Naomi Baron conductedA survey among 300 students from the USA, Japan, Slovakia and Germany. And 92% of respondents said that fixing key points on paper helps them achieve maximum concentration and leave more information in their memory.
Damien Roche, a Quora user, software developer, and entrepreneur, notes that mental maps help create a general idea of a subject and understand how it works. For example, Damien made a newbie scheme that describes all the components necessary for a Ruby on Rails developer. He is confident that the card will be a good help in learning and will help beginners not to miss important things.
Other developers on this Quora thread claimthat it’s worth even trying to write code for your mental map creation service, as this will allow you to pump practical skills in parallel.
An example of successful development of a project with mental maps is Learn Anything. At first he looked like this . Authors just practiced coding. One of the developers, Angelo Gazzola, even asked Reddit users for advice on how to improve the maps.
However, then the project grew into something more and became a service for finding educational content on the Internet. Now this open resource looks like this and unites one and a half thousand interactive mental maps. You can read more about this in the article.Nikita Voloboev, one of the curators of the Learn Anything project.
Also, when learning a new language, Quora residents recommend google examples of using the code in real projects and practice their implementation as they study the material. At the same time, Abhishek Chauhan, a software engineer at Amazon, advises experimenting with the code found as examples or tutorials.
For example, Daniel Von Fange, a web application developer, has been using the following algorithm for decades : reading a book in one go, and then developing a demo project, applying the knowledge gained. After clarifies the details that are forgotten or missed. According to him, he opens the book only a couple of times to learn key points.
It is also important to use as many sources as possible to evaluate different points of view. For this, forums, books, articles and examples of someone else's code are suitable. If you opted for a book, then, as one of the Stack Exchange residents advises, you should go directly to the end of the chapter, read the conclusions, do the exercises and immediately put the knowledge into practice. If there are no tasks in the book, you need to invent them yourself or ask a friend about it.
To expand knowledge in a specific area, members of the Software Engineering thread also recommendmake short reads. The main thing is concentration, it should be maximum. You can use the following cycle: thoughtfully read the book for 10 minutes, then ask yourself: “Am I bored?” If the answer is yes, postpone reading; otherwise, read another 10 minutes. The main thing is not to forget about your goals and objectives in order to nevertheless complete the study of the planned.
It is also worth paying attention to thematic platforms: Habrahabr, Toaster, Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, as well as thematic threads on forums and social networks. There you can find answers to many questions - almost all the problems that you encounter have already been solved by someone. In an extreme case, you can ask a question yourself.
Today we will tell you what sources programmers, engineers and residents of thematic platforms (Stack Exchange, Stack Overflow, etc.) recommend contacting if you need to learn a new language or deepen your knowledge in any particular area. We will also give some of their recommendations on how to “work” with such literature. / Flickr / devin stein / cc
What is technical literature
The technical literature includes not only books on programming theory or languages. This can include news on the topic, threads on specialized platforms, documentation, help and guides, someone else’s code and even corporate blogs (our example is on the 1cloud website ).
Each of these sources solves various problems: it simply entertains the reader or helps to find the answer to a specific question. For example, books about programming languages, algorithms and so on give you the opportunity to plunge into the desired area of knowledge. Newsletters and related news help keep you up to date and learn new technologies in the background. Blogs and forums allowfind out people's opinions about a particular problem, adopt their experience or just have fun. Threads on Hacker News, Stack Exchange, Reddit, etc. fall into the same category.
Another type of "technical literature" is program code. Reading and analyzing someone else's code allows you to learn from the mistakes of others. And reference books will help you learn the attributes of a function, the principles of its operation, or quickly refresh in your memory forgotten things.
Thus, different types of sources are suitable for different tasks. But no one reads literature, code, "from cover to cover" threads: books are often boughtas a desktop reference, and on specialized platforms like Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, people use the search - found the answer to their question, solved the problem. The undoubted advantage of interactive platforms is that you are not limited to already existing content - if you didn’t answer the question of interest, or if you don’t fully understand someone’s explanation, you can ask your own questions.
For example, in thisThe thread on the SO thread starter asked why array sorting makes its code six times faster. Community members told him about branch prediction algorithms, built circuits, drew analogies, and recommended books for further study. This question has become the most popular on the platform - the thread has collected more than a million views, and one of the plus plus answers is more than 26 thousand times.
Thus, the choice of specific sources depends on the goals and objectives that you plan to solve. What we will talk about later.
If you want to learn something new in the background
Mailing lists and blogs are suitable for this task. They are convenient to view in the morning with a cup of coffee or during a break at work. This does not require much effort and allows you to constantly be in the subject of recent events. For example, this site contains 50 of the best programming blogs on a variety of topics: from iOS development to web design, and here you will find 13 popular mailing lists. As an option - install a specialized application on your smartphone.
Additionally, developer and mathematician Wayne Uejio recommends adding online ads from potential customers to your feed in order to better understand the situation on the labor market and the current needs of employers.
If you need to know the attributes of a function
In order to clarify or refresh something specific, reference books, guides and help are suitable . After familiarization, you can, for example, write information to a piece of paper or create a GitHub repository, as did web developer James Harris. So you do not have to contact the help again and spend time on it.
If you need to learn a new language
In this case, one of the options are books. When choosing a book, it is important to read the annotation - it is believed that the first thousand words sets the basis for the entire book (and, at least, allows you to get acquainted with the style of the author). Therefore, the annotation and table of contents, like a litmus test, will help to formulate a general idea of whether this book is suitable for you now (does it contain answers to the necessary questions, are there many examples, does the author explain why to read his book and what knowledge you will get in in total), or maybe you should put it aside and switch to other publications.
Also, when choosing literature for studying new technologies, it is worth paying attention to thematic collections and digests compiled on the basis of recommendations from industry experts - most often they contain the most adequate materials verified by the community. For example, here are a few selections that we prepared in 1cloud: VPS digest , DNS digest , VPN digest .
At the same time, Hacker News users are advised to read several books in parallel so that you can look at the topic from “different angles” and create a more complete picture in your head. And this is true not only for books, but also for articles and blogs. For example, you can read an articleMonday Bowling’s blog author James Bowen on monk types at Haskell, while exploring one of GitHub’s explanations about how monads “reproduce”.
In addition, residents of HN offer to write notes , draw mental maps, as well as fix questions that arise during the reading, so that later you can look for answers in other sources. When we write by hand, we better understand and remember important material.
Linguistics professor Naomi Baron conductedA survey among 300 students from the USA, Japan, Slovakia and Germany. And 92% of respondents said that fixing key points on paper helps them achieve maximum concentration and leave more information in their memory.
Damien Roche, a Quora user, software developer, and entrepreneur, notes that mental maps help create a general idea of a subject and understand how it works. For example, Damien made a newbie scheme that describes all the components necessary for a Ruby on Rails developer. He is confident that the card will be a good help in learning and will help beginners not to miss important things.
Other developers on this Quora thread claimthat it’s worth even trying to write code for your mental map creation service, as this will allow you to pump practical skills in parallel.
An example of successful development of a project with mental maps is Learn Anything. At first he looked like this . Authors just practiced coding. One of the developers, Angelo Gazzola, even asked Reddit users for advice on how to improve the maps.
However, then the project grew into something more and became a service for finding educational content on the Internet. Now this open resource looks like this and unites one and a half thousand interactive mental maps. You can read more about this in the article.Nikita Voloboev, one of the curators of the Learn Anything project.
Also, when learning a new language, Quora residents recommend google examples of using the code in real projects and practice their implementation as they study the material. At the same time, Abhishek Chauhan, a software engineer at Amazon, advises experimenting with the code found as examples or tutorials.
For example, Daniel Von Fange, a web application developer, has been using the following algorithm for decades : reading a book in one go, and then developing a demo project, applying the knowledge gained. After clarifies the details that are forgotten or missed. According to him, he opens the book only a couple of times to learn key points.
If you need to deepen your knowledge on the topic
It is also important to use as many sources as possible to evaluate different points of view. For this, forums, books, articles and examples of someone else's code are suitable. If you opted for a book, then, as one of the Stack Exchange residents advises, you should go directly to the end of the chapter, read the conclusions, do the exercises and immediately put the knowledge into practice. If there are no tasks in the book, you need to invent them yourself or ask a friend about it.
To expand knowledge in a specific area, members of the Software Engineering thread also recommendmake short reads. The main thing is concentration, it should be maximum. You can use the following cycle: thoughtfully read the book for 10 minutes, then ask yourself: “Am I bored?” If the answer is yes, postpone reading; otherwise, read another 10 minutes. The main thing is not to forget about your goals and objectives in order to nevertheless complete the study of the planned.
It is also worth paying attention to thematic platforms: Habrahabr, Toaster, Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange, as well as thematic threads on forums and social networks. There you can find answers to many questions - almost all the problems that you encounter have already been solved by someone. In an extreme case, you can ask a question yourself.
Briefly summarize all of the above:
- For background training, pay attention to newsletters, news, blogs.
- To clarify the intricacies of the implementation of functions, reference books, guides, forums are suitable - briefly record the information received.
- To learn a new language, work with several sources in parallel, remembering the main points. In the process of studying the material, look for examples and write your code.
- To deepen knowledge on a topic in a specific way, study forums, books, articles and examples of other people's code - and immediately apply the acquired knowledge in practice.