On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 8:03 PM, Alex Dean <alex@crackpot.org> wrote:
>
> On May 4, 2009, at 7:23 PM, Joshua Zeidner wrote:
>
>> On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 7:02 PM, Craig White <craigwhite@azapple.com>
>> wrote:
>>  fact is, those books barely equip you to pass a job interview let
>> alone actually build software.  At this point, they act primarily as
>> totems of technical knowledge and tend to help convince oblivious
>> managers that someone is technically knowledgeable.
>
> Well, I work at home, and my boss never sees my desk, but I have plenty of
> books lying around.  I find I use them most when I'm first learning a
> subject, and less and less after that.  Overall, my experience has been that
> O'Reilly books have had the best staying power (as references, not just
> step-by-step introductions) of any of the various technical books I've
> owned.
>
> The O'Reilly JavaScript book is the single book where I've actually
> purchased the updated edition of a book I already own.  It's excellent, and
> having all that trivial detail collected in one place is a great supplement
> to the various bookmarks I have on the subject.  Their book on Ruby is
> written in fantastic (you might say excruciating, in some places) detail.  I
> very seriously doubt you could collect such a comprehensive resource online
> without a massive amount of effort.  $40 (minus the 40% PLUG discount!) was
> well worth the money.  I'm currently fully employed as a Ruby/Rails
> developer, and I can say without hesitation that O'Reilly books were part of
> getting me there.  I'm sure I could have done it without the books, but
> having them made the experience much more pleasant.  I read the thing nearly
> cover to cover before really doing much at the computer.  Scoff if you will,
> but I say to each his own.
>
> I will say I have noticed the quality of their bindings seems to less in the
> last year or two.  I have several with cracked spines, and that never seemed
> to happen back in the day.  But overall a book purchase is still something
> which makes sense to me when I'm first getting into a totally new technology
> or language.
>
> I guess I don't understand where all the virulence is coming from here?
>  You're making a very sweeping generalization about most every developer who
> uses books.  Why?  I get that having a rack of books which don't get read is
> lame and poser-like, but why do you think that's the main purpose for
> published technical books nowadays?
>
>
>> In general, the
>> print world is in crisis because their value proposal is quickly being
>> invalidated.
>
> I don't think that's true.

  yes, but don't you work for a newspaper?  ;)

 -jmz


>  The value of a book is in the editing as much as
> the author's copy.  As I've said, I feel like O'Reilly books in general
> score very well on this scale.  It wouldn't bother me if someone were to
> disagree with this assertion, but I don't understand the disdain for print
> you are be showing.
>
> alex
>
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