If you're going to talk about it, read it.

I was saved by the negativity in "The Intellectual Production of Engineers" about "if you are going to talk about 00, you should at least read xxx". I'll take that as a good thing since I was studying something else on my own time. People's time is finite, and the reading experience depends a lot on people's prerequisite knowledge and experience, and I don't remember everything anyway.

I totally agree with the second half, but I only feel uncomfortable when you describe it as 'I was negative about "if you're going to talk about 00, you should at least read xx"'!

Think about why you feel uncomfortable.

For ease of explanation, I'll rewrite the symbols to "If you're going to talk about A, you should at least read X."

Good thing I was studying something else on my own time.

agreement

If you learned about B instead of learning about A, there is nothing wrong with that.

Compared to learning about A because "everyone else is learning about A," you are choosing what you want to learn about, and that's rather nice.

People's time is finite.

agreement

You can't learn everything because it's finite.

What to invest limited time in is an individual investment decision

The reading experience is highly dependent on a person's prerequisite knowledge and experience

agreement

You don't get the same thing from the same book.

I don't remember everything anyway.

agreement

It's not like a human downloading a file to a computer.

We don't remember everything, and computers are better at remembering everything.

Negative about "if you're going to talk about A, you should at least read X."

hmm

There's nothing wrong with learning B instead of A, and in learning A, it might be a good idea to read Y instead of X.

This is a "if you're going to talk about X, at least read the book where it was proposed" composition.

I'm not saying, "Be faithful to the scriptures."

Once you understand it, you can modify it to suit your situation or cut corners in areas you deem unimportant. Recommendation

But the "once you understand it" is not done.

This could be an impression that depends on the relationship between A and X.

If you're going to talk about programming, at least learn Haskell."

A is very wide and X is high cost

NG feelings

If you're going to talk about Haskell, at least read the Haskell tutorial."

A is narrower and X is lower cost

This is the opposite of the "of course" feeling.

NG feels that "claims that impose high cost burdens on a wide range of people"

If the scope is narrow, I feel that "if you're going to talk about it, you obviously need to know the premise."

You said you were negative about "if you're going to talk about A, you should at least read X" which is not limited to A and X, even though my feelings are different depending on the content of A and X. You came up with A and X which are not negative, which led to your discomfort.

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