Jason Meridth

Jason Meridth

Learn, Converse, Share

26 Jan 2007

Thoughts about reading computer books

I have been coding ASP.NET for about 4 years now.  I had a co-worker bring a book to work titled “Essential ASP.NET” by Fritz Onion.  I skimmed it and it looked very interesting do to it’s text on application pools and low level information that I’ve always taken for granted.  I finished reading a few of the other books lounging around my house and decided that I wanted to read it.  I inquired with my co-worker on that very thing and he told me he had given it to another co-worker.  To make a long story short, I’m currently borrowing that copy of the text.

When I got it, the first thing I noticed is that it looked like it has been read 1,000 times.  It also had highlighting on every single page and handwritten text out to the side of 4/5 of the pages.  I talked to my co-worker about the added highlighting and writing and he told me that the book was practically his bible when he was tasked with creating his own version of ASP.NET 2.0’s Master pages, but in ASP.NET 1.1.  He was able to understand caching, pooling, and other low-level tasks by reading and truly studying this book.

While reading (and I’m still currently reading) this book, I have to admit the highlighted passages are very good and the text he wrote out to the side may just be repeating what I’ve already read on the page,  but it made it stand out to me more.

I feel as though I’ve “read” too many technical books but never actually studied them like my co-worker did.  I’m starting to highlight and write in my texts now.  I’m remembering the information better.

I guess this is just a thought for my blog, but can be easily categorized as “Jason found a study habit that works for him”.

Maybe next book you read, you’ll try this method.

Thank you to Keith Smith for showing me his study method.