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Re:Simple-twitter: A bare-bones Twitter clone implemented in... by bonoboTP on Friday November 22, 2019 @08:22AM (#21605293)
Yes, I think some people falsely learn early on that stumbling upon something they don't quite understand is a sign that they are failing.

I sometimes even think (though I'm not so sure) that having too good textbooks can be an impediment for above-average students as they have less to wrestle with and things are laid out and pre-disgested too much. I may be wrong though, because you can then just get to the next levels until you hit the wall.

But I feel like anecdotally I got good value from deriving some basic things and reorganizing the somewhat badly presented materials in some of my classes. Later on I found very good American textbooks (although widely out of the reach of my wallet at the time), from MIT etc. which were crystal clear in some of the intuition that I had to sweat out for myself. Maybe I could have spent that energy at higher levels, though.

Re:Simple-twitter: A bare-bones Twitter clone implemented in... by mygo on Friday November 22, 2019 @01:45PM (#21608609)
A good textbook is indispensable.

The difficulty of a student is knowing which book is good, and which could be doing a better job at teaching.

Is it a difficult subject or do you need a better book?

Re:Simple-twitter: A bare-bones Twitter clone implemented in... by bonoboTP on Friday November 22, 2019 @03:50PM (#21609929)
In my country (Hungary, but I saw similar attitude in Germany as well) its not unusual to learn entirely from the lecture material (own notes or provided script and assignments) without any textbook. Some people do get a book from the library, but it's not really expected from you.
Re:Simple-twitter: A bare-bones Twitter clone implemented in... by mygo on Monday December 02, 2019 @07:07PM (#21688519)
my original comment before editing said book/teacher. I use them interchangeably, but I hope the message is still there. Namely: Is it a difficult subject or do you need a better teacher?