Books

"I love books" -- the Globglogabgalab.

In our age of digital abundance, I rarely have to read physical books.
But when I do, I am almost surprised by how much better of a medium they
are than digital files.

Books might not be the best medium for all use cases. You cannot easily
copy a source code listing from a book to your computer, or quickly
search for a word across all pages. These are easy tasks with digital
text files. But digital files fall short in the following things.

1. Books don't surprise

Books are traditional and ubiquitous. You will never have to explain
what a book is or how it works. Books are a lowest common denominator:
every academic field works with books, and books work the same way with
every academic field. You might even call "the book as such" an
institution of our culture.

2. Books always work

Books don't need electricity. There are no character encodings, file
types, or graphical limitations with books. You just open them under
sufficient lighting and scan them with your eyes. This will always work
until their ink fades or their paper rots.

3. Books have pages

Every book has them by necessity. As a side effect, they split the text
into chunks that are easy to point to: count the pages, take the number.
If the chunks were smaller, it would be harder to point somewhere: which
line number do you pick when you mean a region of paragraphs? If the
chunks were larger, e.g. chapters, it would be harder to find what you
need. Pages are a middle way.

4. Books can wait

Once you have a copy of a book, the text can't change. You can rely on
it. Take your time. Take a break. Come back later. No unseeming changes
like with pages on the internet. If there is an update, it has to be
printed anew. What is on your shelf or desk is yours. Books are truly
decentralized.

5. Books take space

Digital text vanishes easily. You can overwrite it or delete it. Pages
on the internet can go down forever. But we tend not to destroy books.
When you no longer like a book, you give it away, sell it, or forget
about it. But it still exists. If you are looking for an obscure, old
work, chances are that some library still has a copy.

6. Books encourage quality

You cannot change a book once it is printed, and it is hard to print a
book. This encourages careful and complete writing.

With a good textbook, you feel like by the end of the book, you will be
an expert. The hardest part has already been done for you. All you have
to do is read it. I have felt this way with the following books:

1. "The UNIX Programming Environment",
   by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike.

2. "The C Programming Language",
   by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie.

3. "The AWK Programming Language",
   by Alfred Aho, Brian Kernighan, and Peter Weinberger.

4. "Pro Git",
   by Scott Chacon and Ben Straub.
   Read it online: https://git-scm.com/book/

5. "MH & nmh: Email for Users & Programmers",
   by Jerry Peek.
   Read it online: https://rand-mh.sourceforge.io/book/

I especially like the books where Brian Kernighan has collaborated. I
feel like they explain everything in simple terms from the ground up and
still treat you intelligently. It is as if you were a fellow engineer
who just happens to never have heard of anything the book talks about
through no fault of your own. It is a uniquely exciting and pleasant
reading experience.

Written by Daniel Kalak in 2023. Verbatim copying and distribution of
this entire article are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any
medium, provided this notice is preserved. EOF