Who does every book exercise?
closed account (z0My6Up4)
Programming books have lots of exercises in them. I was wondering if people do every single exercise when reading a book, or just a selection at the end of each chapter?
Well I don't care for the books that teach you a chapters worth of knowledge and then throw exercises at you. I prefer how C++ Primer does it, give a section of information and then follows it with an exercise. That said, yes, I do do every exercise and I even get books I have just to do the exercises to help me keep up on programming.
closed account (z0My6Up4)
Are You are saying you have done every single exercise in C++ Primer? (Lippman, Lajoie and Moo) 5th Edition
Do people really buy multiple editions of the same book? Do new editions really vary by that much? I always though a new edition was somewhere between updating existing material that is now out of date, and releasing the same book more than once to get more money without creating new content under the pretence of updating the existing content. If the new edition differs significantly from the previous one and is adding, rather than updating, a significant amount of content then it should be released as a second volume, not a second edition.
Whenever I buy a technical book (quite rare because I prefer to read philosophy and literature, and rely on practice and the Internet for technical things) I just get the most recent edition and read it once or twice doing whichever exercises strike my fancy. Is that a lazy way to learn? Yes. Would it be better to do all of the exercises? Almost certainly, unless many of the exercises are very similar. Does it matter in the long-run? Probably not.
Whenever I buy a technical book (quite rare because I prefer to read philosophy and literature, and rely on practice and the Internet for technical things) I just get the most recent edition and read it once or twice doing whichever exercises strike my fancy. Is that a lazy way to learn? Yes. Would it be better to do all of the exercises? Almost certainly, unless many of the exercises are very similar. Does it matter in the long-run? Probably not.
closed account (z05DSL3A)
| chrisname wrote: |
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| Do people really buy multiple editions of the same book? |
| chrisname wrote: |
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| Do new editions really vary by that much? |
closed account (z0My6Up4)
Chrisname - I have bought multiple editions of the same book a few times. I bought the 2nd edition on operating systems design and implementation and I also bought the 3rd edition because the subject matter had changed considerably. In C++ I bought C++ Primer 4th Edition and then later on I bought the 5th Edition because I wanted to see an updated expo with C++11.
I buy multiple editions of the same book. I have two different editions of SAMS Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days, The C++ Programming Language, and C++ Primer (those are the three I can think of offhand without going to look through my library of books). Edition updates are done to fix errata from previous editions or to add to it due to changes (ie the C++11 standard cause The C++ Programming Language and C++ Primer to have new editions released covering the new standard).
Solving exercises are a vital component of learning for me. I don't feel confident at all until I practically test my knowledge by writing some code or solving an exercise. Moreover it acts as a short re-cap to what I have just read.
For me exercises are also important to break the monotony, because my attention span is very small and I tend to get distracted very soon.
Ofcourse the exercises should be challenging enough otherwise I tend to skip them after solving one or two.
For me exercises are also important to break the monotony, because my attention span is very small and I tend to get distracted very soon.
Ofcourse the exercises should be challenging enough otherwise I tend to skip them after solving one or two.
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