On 15 Sep 2013, at 09:35, doug livesey <[email protected]> wrote: > Don't get me wrong, I still buy them for it, as it's cheaper and more > convenient to carry around, but I find code examples wrapped too much, and > the lack of colour is a real disadvantage, too. > Technical books that I really need to study & grok, I buy the paper copies, > sometimes after confirming that the investment will be worth it on the kindle > (although not often -- that would be silly).
Source code heavy stuff I want neither on my Kindle or on paper but on screen. Syntax-highlighted (because all the code I work with is so my brain is better wired to comprehend it), and possibly cut/paste-able so I can play with the examples a little and try different things. Buying the eBook from O'Reilly, pragprog.com or Amazon and then being able to get it on-screen is therefore quite useful. You're not tied to the device - I like the device for being able to carry a large number of volumes for reference though. However, most decent "tech" books I read these days are source-code light and discussion-strong: I stopped needing to read Sams "... in 24 hours" code-tutorial style books a while back, and I don't think anybody reads books like GOOS whilst trying to really concentrate on the source code are they? For that stuff, I don't feel I need the 1.5kgs of dead tree cluttering up the place either. I also think the design of most paper books in this space is very poor as well. If a book does have a lot of source code in it and is expecting you to sit it next to a keyboard, why is it perfect bound? Why isn't it ring-bound? Cost plays a part, but mostly because bookshops (remember those?), refuse to carry ring-bound books as the display space for them is too high. I don't like publishers making design decisions for the product based on sales need rather than the needs of a reader. There's a *lot* of room for innovation and improvement in this space in both paper and digital formats. I'm still surprised nobody has leveraged the iBook format for tech books properly or at length as well, as it happens. However I am absolutely astonished at the regression that O'Reilly, Sams and Wrox have pushed in the tech books: I had hoped the Head First formats might just break them out of the dearth they were in, but no, we still have the same format for the most part we had in the early 1990s for most topics. Just... awful. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NWRUG" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
