Survey Textbook Author Pile-On
The boundary surveying text by Curtis Brown is what I used to study for the PLS exam back in 1979. That edition was a wonderful book. Concise, to the point, accurate and great. I still have it. But later, I noticed that other editors kept adding their name to it, and it has become complex, voluminous and full of wasteful overwriting. And I saw this morning that one of the people offering FS PS training is now listed on the latest edition as an author. I wonder how much each of these supplemental authors actually wrote, or whether some of the additions are not making Brown’s original book less useful. Just my opinion/question.
Out of curiosity, I looked at some of the new FS PS example problems, and one of them seems to extract data regarding the natural hierarchy (hierarchy of calls) and mix apples and oranges asking for prioritization of things–Rights of possession, senior rights, natural monuments, distances. Those are different things. Natural monuments and distances are part of the natural hierarchy, but rights are not. If you look in a book that has too many pages and is too complex, you will find that list, but is not this a case of authors just adding stuff? This makes the whole thing too complex, and NCEES just pulling stuff out of it?
We surveyors know what senior and junior rights are. We know what possession is, but do all PLSs know what is mean by rights of possession? Of course we know that if someone possesses land that person can gain ownership of the land per civil code in any state, but to me, rights of possession is a vague term apparently pulled out of some additional stuff that a tack-on author decided to write just to be writing.
I imagine that many will disagree, and I can understand that. But I guess what I think is important is knowing what is important and the prevention of a bunch of sifting through worthless writing to memorize lists. Basic Curtis Brown is great. To much “writing” added to it by others is shame. Beauty is in brevity and focus on what is important. The rest contains too much waste.
My opinion only.
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