Programming as a discipline is still a largely of an experimental nature. This is not a value judgment one way or the other. But padding out books in order to look more comprehensive is an old trick and is not really the same discussion topic. That has largely been addressed by many things including those publishers who are successful precisely because they do the opposite. Other than that this seems to be a blanket generalization and criticism causing other generalizations and criticisms to spring to my mind, Ivory Tower is one of them ;-)

Having said that, I think that you might be missing the point that the reason for all those examples, even if they are weak in many cases and reasonable to subject to great criticism, is because the practice of programming is how you learn how to program. Reading a book is not oh young rabbit.