Beyond enjoying this channel, I’ve recently been thinking more and more about the value of older books. The trend of the modern internet seems to be leaning towards highly accessible but low quality information, and the amazing density of well-researched information in some older books astounds me.
That’s not to say that we haven’t made advancements (the volume of information I could find about Newport on, say, Tripadvisor vastly exceeds single-source publications like that in the video), but the combined influences of advertising, SEO, fake reviews, data collection, etc. has taken something away from this type of resource.
Books are still great resources on a lot of subjects. By nature of being unchanging, and because they are entitled to assume you’ll read from start to finish, they encourage actually taking the time to build a structure and a cohesive approach to information.
Websites are dynamic and can definitely theoretically be organized as well, but in a lot of cases, they either have a bunch of different inputs without one major editorial direction, or rely on the user to direct their own inquiry with interconnections everywhere. There’s benefits to both of those things, especially once you have a good base in a subject.
But if I want to learn a new coding language, or a new type of project within a language based on a specific library, or how to do a certain type of cooking, or whatever else, I’m starting with a book if I can. The internet is a cool extra resource, but I find books are usually better starting points.
I recently asked my FIL how he learned how to build a house. I assumed his father had taught him. He referred me to a stack of about twenty books from the 80s.
For example, there’s a book on plumbing. Anything I need to know is right there. No website does that.
