Sadly, this is how programming books used to be written. Case in point: about a decade ago in high school we learned programming from a book called C by example. It had a handful of well thought out programming exercises after every section. A few years later I went looking for the book to give to a friend who was starting out. Lo and behold, in an updated version the exercises were all removed! It's mind-boggling that somehow the publisher thought removing the exercises was adding value to the book. Perhaps your average reader feels exercises makes a book seem too technical, so they skip it for the Learn X in Y hours style books? Nowadays you can't find good programming exercises outside of a dry textbook.