I am often asked a question about how to choose reference books. I think that this is also related to the question “Is it better to go university to get systematic knowledge?” (see (1.2.3) Should I go to university?) They think there is an optimal textbook for getting “systematic knowledge” in university. I dig into this matter. (*9)
Let’s first consider the advantage and disadvantages of paper books. Many people implicitly assume paper books when they say “reference books.” Indeed, paper books have some trust. For example, a peacock male has a big tail, but this tail feather is useless for the peacock to survive. Why do you make such useless? There is a theory that it is because it has a large tail featuring that it functions as a signal to appeal that “I have a high ability to gather food” because much nutrition is needed to make a big tail. When the female chooses male, we can not directly observe the ability to collect food. So they decide it by tail feathers which are easy to observe. It is called ”handicap theory.”
Likewise, it is difficult to observe human intellect. In the days when the cost of making paper books was high, the paper book works as a signal of the high intellect of the author. The book was published despite the high cost of publication. That means the publisher judged many people will buy the book. Trust in paper books was occurs this way.
However, with the advance of publishing technology using electronic equipment, the cost of making books has decreased. Various kinds of paper books were also born. For example, in on-demand printing (*11), after the publisher receives an order for the book, only the necessary amount of book is printed and sold. By these cost reductions, publishers accept more publication plans than before. In these days, the paper book no longer works as a signal of quality.
Also, paper books are subject to physical constraints. The document I read most about Python is the Python Library Reference (*12), which is published in HTML and PDF on the Internet. There are more than 1,000 pages in all, so if you publish it as a paper book, it is physically very heavy, and it is expensive. It is already published for free and electronic documents are more convenient to search. This material is not published as a paper book ever after. If you limit your textbook to a paper book, you drop this kind of material.
Notes
- *9 In (4.4.2.1) Read the shelf introduces a methodology called ”shelf-viewing” for selecting books.
- *11 Concretely refers to Kindle Direct Publishing.
- *12 I surely read it over 1,000 times if I call to open books and read a few pages as “to read.”
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