Learning Method

How do I learn about a topic? Well there are different strategy. One of the things I often do is to look for excellent books on the topic and go through the content and look for things I do not already know. Take for example: The Database System Implementation book by Hector Garcia-Molina, Jeffrey D. Ullman and Jennifer Widom,Prentice-Hall International London Limited ,2000 ISBN 0-13-0400264-8. I look at the section in the table of content. For example:

• 2.4 Improving the access of secondary storage
  • 2.4.1 I/O model of computation
  • 2.4.2 Sorting data on secondary storage
  • 2.4.3 Merge Sort
  • 2.4.4 Two-phase, multiway merge sort
  • 2.4.5 extension of multiway merging for larger relations

I know already something about merge sort. However, I don't know much about the other topics. So I take a look at each of them. If something seems interesting and important then I try to sum up the information learnt somewhere, for example, in this blog.