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.  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