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by coisnepe 637 days ago
Reminds me of how some people mocked me for having O'Reilly and such massive reference books when I started learning Python and Ruby. "But everything's online!" they claimed. Sure, but nothing's faster than browsing the index for what you're looking for and then skimming the section you're interested in, as opposed to going back and forth StackOverflow threads and random blogs. Currently renovating my house and I again bought 400+ pages reference books of plumbing and electricity, largely sparring me the need to endure endless YouTube videos littered with skits, sponsorships etc. Just straight to the point, factual information.
1 comments

Online documentation is good if you already know what you're looking for. It is shit if you want to discover what is available. I am specifically thinking of the python docs and the time I, as a not-python programmer, wanted to see the various "grouping" types (lists, arrays, sets, dicts, tuples, whatever).
The Python core docs are uniquely terrible, though.