My outside view, in that I have rarely seen online book clubs or group readings ever work out*, is that you will probably fail.
Many times the attempts seem to founder on a lack of clear objectives or a clunky technical setup. I suggest you work on these; many short, automatically graded exercises, and a quick easy interface to them may work for a math-heavy PT:TLOS.
(Even if you did set up such a site—which would be a great resource—I am still pessimistic. I have PT:TLOS, and it requires quite a bit of math. Better know your calculus well.)
(Oh, and you might want to make a PDF version with the various corrections added in. Little is more frustrating than errors in a math book.)
* offhand: one failure to read through Dune, 2 different groups failing to read through The Book of the New Sun, multiple failed attempts at The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and Real World Haskell, and no doubt some others that escape me now
How do you unpack “fail” or “flounder” in this context? What counts as success?
If your criterion for success is “taking a group of people through the entire text without most of them dropping out” then yes, I also expect failure, but I wouldn’t be bothered by it much.
Here relative success seems more important. On a personal level this is an opportnunity for me to get more out of Jaynes, through comparing notes with others, than I would otherwise have. Symmetrically others should get the same benefit. Some people will invest time in studying the book that they may not otherwise have, and depending on their goal just that may count as a success.
I’ve had a very satisfactory prior experience participating in an online SICP study group (i.e. I learned quite a bit about programming), and I was peripherally involved in a brown bag club that tackled Jerry Weinberg’s Quality Software Management, the people who did stick with it got a lot out of it.
How do you unpack “fail” or “flounder” in this context?
I would also add in ‘founding members spend a great deal of effort and time on group-related activity such that they get less out of studying than they would otherwise have’. That, combined with the usual massive attrition just in the first few chapters...
This is the primary reason I gave my location—if I’m meeting with a group of people every week, we can go over the problems together in a high-bandwidth format.
offhand: one failure to read through Dune, 2 different groups failing to read through The Book of the New Sun, multiple failed attempts at The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and Real World Haskell
Great list! You must have some cool friends, though apparently somewhat undermotivated.
If anyone has already reformatted (automatic conversion is not as good as one might hope) to an ebook format for easy Kindle use, I’d appreciate it. For a good non-DRM conversion, I’d be happy to pay up to $72 (the current Amazon.com price for a new dead-tree copy).
My outside view, in that I have rarely seen online book clubs or group readings ever work out*, is that you will probably fail.
Many times the attempts seem to founder on a lack of clear objectives or a clunky technical setup. I suggest you work on these; many short, automatically graded exercises, and a quick easy interface to them may work for a math-heavy PT:TLOS.
(Even if you did set up such a site—which would be a great resource—I am still pessimistic. I have PT:TLOS, and it requires quite a bit of math. Better know your calculus well.)
(Oh, and you might want to make a PDF version with the various corrections added in. Little is more frustrating than errors in a math book.)
(Also of relevance: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/etjaynesstudy/ )
* offhand: one failure to read through Dune, 2 different groups failing to read through The Book of the New Sun, multiple failed attempts at The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and Real World Haskell, and no doubt some others that escape me now
How do you unpack “fail” or “flounder” in this context? What counts as success?
If your criterion for success is “taking a group of people through the entire text without most of them dropping out” then yes, I also expect failure, but I wouldn’t be bothered by it much.
Here relative success seems more important. On a personal level this is an opportnunity for me to get more out of Jaynes, through comparing notes with others, than I would otherwise have. Symmetrically others should get the same benefit. Some people will invest time in studying the book that they may not otherwise have, and depending on their goal just that may count as a success.
I’ve had a very satisfactory prior experience participating in an online SICP study group (i.e. I learned quite a bit about programming), and I was peripherally involved in a brown bag club that tackled Jerry Weinberg’s Quality Software Management, the people who did stick with it got a lot out of it.
I would also add in ‘founding members spend a great deal of effort and time on group-related activity such that they get less out of studying than they would otherwise have’. That, combined with the usual massive attrition just in the first few chapters...
This is the primary reason I gave my location—if I’m meeting with a group of people every week, we can go over the problems together in a high-bandwidth format.
I’m in.
Spokane Washington here.
Great list! You must have some cool friends, though apparently somewhat undermotivated.
If anyone has already reformatted (automatic conversion is not as good as one might hope) to an ebook format for easy Kindle use, I’d appreciate it. For a good non-DRM conversion, I’d be happy to pay up to $72 (the current Amazon.com price for a new dead-tree copy).
I’m using the Sony Reader, and I I’ve found the PDFs to be adequate so far. What specifically is your problem?