> Well, books also continue to fail a lot of people
Yes, because learning is hard. A book is not a guarantee that you'll learn something - but neither is any other sort of resource.
The thesis of this discussion is that "books don't work" and that's blatantly false. Maybe there's certain people for whom they really "don't work", but as a general statement, it's false.
> Which topic do you think can't benefit from one?
I don't need fancy data visualisation if I read up on the history of the Roman Empire, for example. Or if I want to read Plato. Or to understand axiomatic set theory.
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I'll just put it differently: if you prefer other kinds of resources and they work for you - great. But to say "books don't work" just means that you artificially limit the things you learn. Writing books is comparatively easy (if you're an expert in the area). Doing fancy interactive experiences etc. requires much more time, skill, knowledge etc. - there's probably 3 to 4 orders of magnitude more stuff that has been written in books than has been made available through other means, so saying "books suck" means just locking yourself out of a lot of stuff.
You're wrong re the thesis: this discussion is about the limitations of the format the op claimed were "few", and those limitations are what help fail people, you can't ignore it with a "learning is hard" mantra, that's not relevant when the argument is that it's made hardER by the limitations
And of course just dumping your expert knowledge on the page is easier than creating an effective learning experience
Yes, because learning is hard. A book is not a guarantee that you'll learn something - but neither is any other sort of resource.
The thesis of this discussion is that "books don't work" and that's blatantly false. Maybe there's certain people for whom they really "don't work", but as a general statement, it's false.
> Which topic do you think can't benefit from one?
I don't need fancy data visualisation if I read up on the history of the Roman Empire, for example. Or if I want to read Plato. Or to understand axiomatic set theory.
---
I'll just put it differently: if you prefer other kinds of resources and they work for you - great. But to say "books don't work" just means that you artificially limit the things you learn. Writing books is comparatively easy (if you're an expert in the area). Doing fancy interactive experiences etc. requires much more time, skill, knowledge etc. - there's probably 3 to 4 orders of magnitude more stuff that has been written in books than has been made available through other means, so saying "books suck" means just locking yourself out of a lot of stuff.