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Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
oantolin@mathstodon.xyz ("Omar Antolín") wrote:

There is much truth to this post about about #math textbooks.

Screenshot of a post by cauchys-special-boy: if there's one thing ive learned from my math education it's the ability to judge a textbook by it's cover: fancy cover with actual picture, fewer than 15 years old, $300: absolute dogshit. time wasting exercises, poor exposition, that weird gloss they put on the pages probably makes it too toxic to use as kindling title is just name of subject, referred to by author, 50 years old with like 3 editions: excellent. compact proofs, exercises good enough people refer to them by number in conversation. available for free by foraging somewhere they grow naturally title is some shit like paul's notes, "cover" is just default latex titlepage, distributed as pdf to grad classes or by advisor: best coverage of whatever (usually niche) topic it's about in the world. crystal clear exposition. solutions to exercises available by emailing grad students working under author