I suppose that all else equal, more recent textbooks are better since they are going to be more up-to-date (modulo editions) and also written to address a perceived flaw in all the existing books? Though there are some great older textbooks: I think I remember reading that Turing award winner Richard Hamming added probability to his calculus textbook because he agreed with students that calculus was too frequently presented without any motivating applications.
If you’re an autodidact, having answers available for the problems in the book, to make sure you are learning stuff correctly, seems pretty valuable.
I suppose that all else equal, more recent textbooks are better since they are going to be more up-to-date (modulo editions) and also written to address a perceived flaw in all the existing books? Though there are some great older textbooks: I think I remember reading that Turing award winner Richard Hamming added probability to his calculus textbook because he agreed with students that calculus was too frequently presented without any motivating applications.
If you’re an autodidact, having answers available for the problems in the book, to make sure you are learning stuff correctly, seems pretty valuable.