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Comment by underdeserver | Hacker News Reader

I actually find the opposite.

Many books belabor the point and take a chapter to explain what a paragraph could.

It might sometimes be useful - for example, to explain a scenario to a newbie who can't relate from their own experience - but for someone who's been in the industry for a while, most of that information is just not useful.

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Relatedly, but I've always wished there were a series of books like, "I'm Already a Programmer but I'd Like to Learn ____"

Trying to pick up a book about a new programming language that is trying to explain the concept of an 'array' or whatever is annoying--I wish there was something to just lay out (still in a thoughtful and guided way) the concepts I needed to understand for that language based on already knowing several others.

Agreed! I've only found a few great examples of books like this, such as Advanced R. There's a lot of "You can skip this chapter if you already know how to answer the following questions..."

It would be nice if the table of contents marked where to start if you're already familiar with programming concepts.

Learnxinyminutes?

Called US writing style over here, just being overly verbose. Course literature, e.g. Calculus, suffers from this. It is a style in which you wax on and drive home the point by repetition.

This style is popular nowdays and finding books that succintcly describes a subject is hard. This is mostly because you need to have common ground, and writing for the smallest common denominator is better.

Writing succinctly is a difficult skill that requires practice. The US government has put a lot of work into making things easier to understand in recent years. I have a Masters in Public Administration. My professors hammered home the idea that lawmakers and the public aren't going to read your 50 page policy analysis, so matter how brilliant it is. My final paper in Project Management class was worth 25% of my final grade and had a one-page limit. It's one of the most difficult projects I've ever had. If you're interested in learning more about this style of writing, check out plainlanguage.gov.

I actually think Calculus textbooks are justified in being long. he material is just so hard to grasp for newbies that giving you more and more examples sort of provides you with more time to digest the ideas in the background. Many students need that at that stage in their studies.

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