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Structure

Learners can be roughly partitioned into two buckets. In one are those that learn better by first being introduced to an abstract concept, and then being shown concrete examples. In the other are those that prefer the opposite approach — see the concrete and relatable, get comfortable with it, and only then derive the abstract concepts from the examples.

In our case, the “concrete” is the list of things, while the “abstract” is the themes. Books are not yet dynamic enough that I can rearrange the content based on a questionnaire in the intro, so it’s up to you to find the balance between reading the themes and the things — feel free to jump between them when you feel things have gotten “too abstract” or “too concrete”. Picking the order that suits you may be crucial to the amount of value you derive from from this book.

The reason I put themes first is to avoid a certain use case I fear in the opposite ordering. A reader may find things plenty useful, start working on and internalizing them, improve their programming a good deal, and let the book slowly fade away from their working life, without ever reaching the themes part and thus without getting a chance to bring it all together and reinforce the concrete learnings.

So, without further ado, let's proceed to our first theme.

Next: Delayed Gratification ⇒

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