Blaise Pascal wrote in Pensées: "There is no man who differs more from another than he does from himself at different times."
Different books have different styles and cater to persons with different needs and, sometimes, the same person has different needs at different times.
For example: we were taught in university using Soviet books, which are to the point and are unbothered with a reader who does not have the prerequisites or who's rusty. It's "Here's the thing. If you can't understand the thing, it means you have to read another book to understand the thing you need to understand before you could understand the thing in this book. We do not address the other thing in this book. We address this thing. Come back when you understand the other thing. Or don't. We don't care".
They can, and do, lose readers. I remember pointing classmates who had trouble catching up in class to courses from MIT or books edited in the U.S because they had physics books with a whole bunch of chapters of maths refreshers! Even they preferred bracing and go hell-for-leather or just sought tutoring by other students. These are great if you're new and want a gentle introduction and don't already have maths books or don't know exactly which books to dust off to refresh a particular concept, but if it's not your first grapple with something and if you want to get to the point, it tests the reader's patience.
For me personally statistics is intuitive if illustrated properly.
It could appeal to some and not to others. You never know. It helps if you have a passion for this.
Take CS50 course/show for example. For someone who has never written a line of code? I bet it would be a great introduction while being entertained, encouraged, hyped, etc. But for someone who already knows how to code in a bunch of languages? They simply can't sit through the woo-woo stagecraft. Although it could be entertainment (that 3Blue1Brown channel on YouTube comes to mind).
Comments
Blaise Pascal wrote in Pensées: "There is no man who differs more from another than he does from himself at different times."
Different books have different styles and cater to persons with different needs and, sometimes, the same person has different needs at different times.
For example: we were taught in university using Soviet books, which are to the point and are unbothered with a reader who does not have the prerequisites or who's rusty. It's "Here's the thing. If you can't understand the thing, it means you have to read another book to understand the thing you need to understand before you could understand the thing in this book. We do not address the other thing in this book. We address this thing. Come back when you understand the other thing. Or don't. We don't care".
They can, and do, lose readers. I remember pointing classmates who had trouble catching up in class to courses from MIT or books edited in the U.S because they had physics books with a whole bunch of chapters of maths refreshers! Even they preferred bracing and go hell-for-leather or just sought tutoring by other students. These are great if you're new and want a gentle introduction and don't already have maths books or don't know exactly which books to dust off to refresh a particular concept, but if it's not your first grapple with something and if you want to get to the point, it tests the reader's patience.
It could appeal to some and not to others. You never know. It helps if you have a passion for this.
Take CS50 course/show for example. For someone who has never written a line of code? I bet it would be a great introduction while being entertained, encouraged, hyped, etc. But for someone who already knows how to code in a bunch of languages? They simply can't sit through the woo-woo stagecraft. Although it could be entertainment (that 3Blue1Brown channel on YouTube comes to mind).
Different strokes for different folks.