&gt; I have a huge collection of print books and that is my preferred way to learn
because I can step away from the computer and digest what I am trying to
learn.<p>Paper has different profile of use friction than computer or tablet.<p>You can&#x27;t easily search it for words, and paper book forces you to use its
index and table of contents, so you have to actually think about what you&#x27;re
looking for. This is stark contrast with how digital text works.<p>You can make notes in a book, you can put shims and bookmarks, you can bend
a page corner. How it works in a computer is not as seamless as with paper;
you have to spend some attention to make a mark, and the mark will be limited
in one way or another.<p>And you can flick through a paper book. This is an important way of working
with a textbook, and no software can render that.<p>&gt; An epaper reader would be a semi-acceptable compromise, but the tactile
feedback of page flipping and bookmarks are also very gratifying.<p>Page flipping is an unimportant detail, and you can have markers in digital
text, too. What is important is how much and how cheaply (in terms of
attention) can you put in your notes, and -- much less tangible thing -- how
the medium inclines your mind for its content.<p>&gt; For note taking, I can use either pen&#x2F;paper, or a laptop with a simple vim
session. The paper is most useful if there are non-text things that need to be
quickly noted, and can be turned into charts&#x2F;graphs or whatever later on if
needed.<p>I actually design my code on paper. And I&#x27;m not talking about UML diagrams,
which I hate. I&#x27;m talking about rough sketches on programming interfaces
(which covers pretty much everything, since I build my systems out of
libraries written specifically for the system I&#x27;m building). I&#x27;m taking
advantage of the friction that paper gives. It forces me to think in different
way than when I&#x27;m writing on a computer, and that different way works very
well for me.