In mathematics, my experience falls emphatically on this explanation: "Hard texts are that much better than anything else." Books like Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis are mathematics; their more accessible counterparts are more "about mathematics." As to why successful people don't read more difficult books, well, being a great mathematician just isn't that important to success. Reading Rudin sets you on the path to being very good at mathematics, but that isn't most people's goal. If your goal is material success then yes, hard books are probably overrated.<p>The programmers here may appreciate this analogy: reading Rudin is like reading the source code, whereas more gentle texts read more like documentation or UML. That's not to say good doc can't be enlightening, but in the end only the source code matters. The doc can be wrong, or misleading, or incomplete. If you want to really understand what's going on, you need to read the source. It's the same way in mathematics.
> This one could really go either way. A broad selection of fifty popular science texts will teach a person more than one really hard book<p>This statement seems obviously false. No amount of reading analogies about science will teach you any actual science. Also, the author seems fixated on measuring learning by "things" (facts?). That's a terrible metric, unless you're trying to collect facts, in which case, you'd probably be better of reading the encyclopedia.
When I was in college, both SICP and Knuth's books were on the recommended reading lists. I didn't buy the former until years later, but did buy Knuth's books (individually and at a time when I could ill afford them) and read them through. They are hard and it was very slow going. There's still a lot I don't understand. But I learned a huge amount, continue to do so and would absolutely recommend them to anyone with enough interest in the field. Similarly, when I finally bought and read SICP, I wondered why I hadn't read it sooner. I still read both books, along with many other "hard" books and enjoy them. I don't think I would be the programmer I am today if I had not read those books.<p>I disagree with the author. I certainly understand that reading "hard" books takes a lot of effort that may not seem worthwhile, but would not say they are overrated.
However, like anything else, they aren't for everyone. Just those who are ready for them.
"Easy" is about proximity to the subject (As in Rich Hickey's Simple Made Easy). Hard books are any books you aren't ready for, and I don't recommend them either.<p>One of the learning buzzwords is "Zone of Proximal Development" which basically means the concepts that are 'nearby' what the learner already knows, and can be learned with help.<p>The author has some keen insights when talking about Familiarity causing recommendation problems. We compress that knowledge down into a very powerful but compact form, and often have a lot of trouble decompressing it when describing something. "What do you mean, 'what is a function?', it's a function, it just is!"<p>I also agree that sometimes people recommend books, even books they have not read, that make them seem smart, which is often unhelpful. Other books have useful content, but are just badly written. We use them if we have too, but we prefer better writing.<p>On the other hand, books like Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs are beautiful, useful, amazing works that when explored at the right time, can be eye opening, profound experiences.<p>A given book may be recommended because it is a simple beautiful elegant work. Simple doesn't mean easy, that's separate. You have to be ready for the book and its concepts before you can benefit from it fully. A good book can challenge you to understand simple, but deep ideas. A good book can be a lot of work and exploration, and may go slowly. But a good book at the right time will be worth your while.<p>So hard books are overrated, but maybe that hard overrated book you rejected before may be more approachable today. Keep in mind when recommending texts to others that they may not be ready for the advanced text yet.
I think his success spirals advice is great. You tend to build up skills iteratively and incrementally.<p>But comparing SICP to baby Rudin is extremely out of point. SICP is a conceptual book. Rudin is a super-synthetic Bourbaki-like text. A lot of intuition has been removed. In general this is bad unless you're going through the topic for the n-th time.
All I can say in reply is that I wish that I had had access to the best presentations of the subject matter that interested me when I was young. I learned calculus from some atrocious "IB HL math manual" over a weekend. I would have been grateful to have had a copy of baby Rudin at that time. Many of today's young (especially in rich areas such as SV) now have the privilege of unfettered and instant access to knowledge, and have been spared the horrors of a public school education drawing on sources full of dumbed-down and inaccurate information. I think this culture is gradually forgetting that the acquisition of knowledge is worth struggling for.
A lot of university students are clueless about this sort of thing. If it's possible to complete the homework by just relying on lecture, then there's no reason to be reading the book. That's a common sentiment, even in some math classes.<p>Somebody, at some point, declared a book to be "great". And now you have a bunch of people recommending that "great" book because that's all they're familiar with (and why would this top notch faculty force us to use this book if it wasn't great anyway?). Few professors actually make an effort to structure classes in a pedagogical way.
I haven't read SICP (shame on me!), but I didn't think it had a reputation of a "hard book". Isn't it designed to be introductory textbook for freshmen students?