[skydhash]

I’m fine with old books. Just bought a bunch including “The TCP/IP Guide” and “The Linux Programming Interface”, which are more than a decade old. The oldest is “ The Design and Implementation of the 4.4Bsd Operating System” (30 years).

It’s better starting from an old books and retrace the updates from that. And with the benefits of hindsight, you can get truly good ones cheaply.

[Theodores]

I like your reading material. I do think the foundations are to be found in the old texts too, but there are limits to it. Take web development, I honestly think that what Tim Berners-Lee conceived has to be understood because the design goals are in there, however, nothing from the era of IE6 hacks should ever be learned because all of it has to be unlearned if you are to understand the newer toys such as the grid layout that we somehow lived without for so long. That too has fundamentals, design goals and specifications that need to be understood if you are to truly get it.

But now you would have 'how to do grid layout with Claude' or something equally daft. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the book would itself be written with AI.

[skydhash]

I separate my learning into “understanding/” and “skill”, the latter being the applied form of the former. I don’t really buy books for the latter, and the former may not be always in book form.

IE6 hacks are skills. The real understanding is how CSS helps with layout. Grid may not be in an old book, but the old will give you enough foundation to easily grasp it. So something like “CSS in Depth”[0] (which talks about grid BTW) is a good candidate to buy.

I think you can get good materials if you focus on getting books that talks about a system (design, theory, implementation), not techniques(skills, how to). Systems evolve and are build on top of each other, or influence each other. Skills come and go.

[0] https://www.manning.com/books/css-in-depth