Reposting my comment from lukeprog’s thread with slight edits.
It would be useful for me if some of you guys shared your methodology of choosing textbook / course / whatever for learning X, especially if X has something to do with math, computer science or programming.
My methodology (especially for math, computer science and programming) (in no particular order):
I know Russian and English but I prefer English textbooks, because there are more textbooks in English produced. If their usefulness for me is a gaussian distribution, then top textbooks in English are probably better, than top textbooks in Russian.
Go to libgen, search for the keyword and sort by the publisher or by year. Identify potentially good publishers, e.g. top universities of the world or top universities in that field, or Springer
Check rating on goodreads and/or on amazon
Check top comments by usefulness on goodreads and/or amazon
Download the book, look at the Contents section, see how useful they seem to me
Google best textbook on ${subject name}, ${book title 1} vs ${book title 2}. Pay special attention to results on stackexchange. Do the same google search with site:reddit.com.
New ideas which I haven’t tried yet:
Look for a subreddit or freenode chat on the topic I am interested in. See if there’s a recommended reading list pinned there.
Reposting my comment from lukeprog’s thread with slight edits.
It would be useful for me if some of you guys shared your methodology of choosing textbook / course / whatever for learning X, especially if X has something to do with math, computer science or programming.
My methodology (especially for math, computer science and programming) (in no particular order):
I know Russian and English but I prefer English textbooks, because there are more textbooks in English produced. If their usefulness for me is a gaussian distribution, then top textbooks in English are probably better, than top textbooks in Russian.
Go to http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subject/ and look at recommendations
Go to libgen, search for the keyword and sort by the publisher or by year. Identify potentially good publishers, e.g. top universities of the world or top universities in that field, or Springer
Check rating on goodreads and/or on amazon
Check top comments by usefulness on goodreads and/or amazon
Download the book, look at the Contents section, see how useful they seem to me
Google best textbook on ${subject name}, ${book title 1} vs ${book title 2}. Pay special attention to results on stackexchange. Do the same google search with site:reddit.com.
New ideas which I haven’t tried yet:
Look for a subreddit or freenode chat on the topic I am interested in. See if there’s a recommended reading list pinned there.