Reading technical books
Back in January, I asked Richard Bejtlich in an email to post some tips for reading books. Reading technical books can be a drag at times, yet somehow he manages to get through several a month. Reading is one of those tasks we all have to do in our line of work, for obvious reasons. Well, I came across another blog post with another point for reading:
All that I really needed from my first trip through the book was to know what was possible, not exactly how to do it.
My father always told me, if you don’t understand something the first time through, read it again until you do. Well sometimes, who needs to know it on the first pass? I always forget why people have technical books… for reference. It’s not like a novel you read once and don’t pick up again because you already know how the story goes.
Maybe this is why I have started about 6-7 books this year and haven’t finished any?
I definitely find scanning through a book to build a mental table of contents useful. Technical books contain so much information that trying anything more than that makes no sense.
we kind of talked about this before. I found myself never finishing books because i’d start working through the examples or doing related research to what i was reading and then ADD would kick in and i’d never finish.
I’ve now vowed that i will read through the book first and then go back and do examples and further research on the topic after. that has been working better for me so far, i’ve managed to get thru many more books in 07, than i did in 05 and 06 and 08 is going well too.