[TheTrotters]

I hate this attitude. It punishes students (and self-learners) who want to be as good as possible and who’d use solutions to get fast feedback.

The right thing to do is to publish detailed solutions to textbook problems and create new problems for HWs.

[alexbeloi]

It doesn't punish anyone. If you want solutions, then the book is not for you, that's all. The author is not obligated to accommodate every audience, or even a majority audience.

[comeonseriously]

"The right thing to do..."

No. He's the author, this is his choice. People who don't take his course don't have to use the book.

[mhh__]

Poor logic. I don't have add tests to my code, after all they're free not to merge, but I should.

Exercises with no solutions are very hard for people learning away from traditional academia - I haven't read this book so I don't know what they're like, but in a physics books it's often common to add questions that take fairly deep conceptual understanding which if you don't click with the book means you're totally out of action until you find somewhere else to learn from.

[comeonseriously]

Again, you don't have to use this book. There are hundreds of books on algorithms, many of which have solutions for people who need them. Getting all pissy with the author because he doesn't provide them is sad and not neccessary.

[sohdas]

I don't know, I think he made a very fair critique. Sure, there are hundreds of algorithms textbooks. But there are hundreds of anything. Anyone can make anything they want to, and they are subject to criticism for that.

[dominotw]

"right thing to do" is not a fair critique.

[pm90]

> Getting all pissy with the author because he doesn't provide them is sad and not neccessary.

The only person who seems to be getting “pissy” is you.

What is the point of making a comment like “if you don’t like it, leave?”. People who say this seem to think they’re some pithy genius but it’s not a comment that advances the conversation at all.

“Hey I have some feedback ...”

“I don’t accept feedback. Take it or leave it”

“Ok”

That’s not really what HN is meant for.

[comeonseriously]

> People who say this seem to think they’re some pithy genius but it’s not a comment that advances the conversation at all.

Does the conversation really need to be advanced? The author has chosen to not include answers and gave an extremely valid reason for choosing not to and HN'ers are, indeed, getting pissy saying the author should do the "right thing" and provide the answers.

No. Just no. The "right thing" is to accept that the author is choosing not to and move on if you need answers. The author doesn't owe anyone answers.

[pm90]

Nobody in this chain mentioned anything about making the author change his decision.

The discussion is about whether his decision may be criticized. Which it absolutely can be.

Again, saying, “if you don’t like it, leave” is not the genius rejoinder you seem to think it is. It doesn’t add anything to the discussion.

I could flip this back at you and say “if you don’t like this discussion, leave”. I’m not doing that because I choose to engage in a good faith discourse.

[squeaky-clean]

Unless this is a book the author wrote solely to enjoy themselves, let's not pretend that feedback from potential buyers is something that shouldn't be allowed.

[sigjuice]

The author has responded to this feedback on the website in great detail. At this point, this is less of feedback and more of entitled people demanding that the author write another book.

[azhenley]

The content is posted for free. If you buy it, you are paying for a physical copy of free material.

PDF of the book: http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/book/Algori...

[vajrabum]

Professors frequently write their own textbooks. Sometimes these are only used in their own classrooms. That's pretty close to their own enjoyment. It allows them to have a book that exactly matches the way they want to teach. As far as buyers, this book is free.