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i am a developer but i never needs to buy book because i always use GOOOGE and codeproject for my problems and using these i get a quick result and i have not enough time to read books.
Regards
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SW companies in rich countries are coming to Eastern Europe, or other poor regions, for highly educated people and small salaries. “It is a poor country, 6000/year will do.” Why do they forget this reasoning when it comes to selling their products in these poor countries? Publishers like Microsoft sell their products to the 6000 developer at the very same price they sell it to the 100000 developer. Why do they forget about the above reasoning when it comes to selling?
The same is truth when it comes to OSs. If you try to buy a copy you discover you must spend a week’s earning, at least. If you don’t buy it you are a pirate. Rich-developer, how good an OS must be to work a week, or more, for a copy?
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I'd love to buy books, although IT books are a bit pricy. The thing that makes me think usually twice is the fact that the information in books (if it's not very generic information) tends to expire within couple of years and sometimes even faster. I have about a dozen VB5/VB6 -books with loads of COM+/DCOM information that I rarely use anymore after moving to .NET. Also I have few books on .NET 1.0/1.1 that are getting quickly old. Only few good books I have bought within last two years are related to pattern programming and agile programming - which are not language or platform specific.
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People who write books are confident enough in their work to spend thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars getting their books published.
I'd say buying a book is like signing a contract of quality; you'd be surprised how much more polished a good book is than almost any online tutorial. There's hardly any tutorials out there that make such an effort to give their readers proper comprehension (when's the last time you saw a 1000 page tutorial?), and examples are only skin deep.
Once in a while a good book is a necessity. You might not need books, but the community as a whole does.
And the people who write good tutorials? Chances are, they read good books.
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I used to buy them all the time when I was learning but I figured out they only work as a reference. At that point MSDN is as good or better. I get a kick out of programmers who line thier desk with programming books to show off what they know. I figure if you really knew the material you wouldn't need the book.
E=mc2 -> BOOM
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Albert Einstein. wrote: I get a kick out of programmers who line thier desk with programming books to show off what they know.
Surely it's the opposite? Acknowledging how much they don't know - hence the need to have books.
Kevin
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I agree, Kevin.
Anyone who decides upon a screenname like 'Albert Einstein' probably feels obligated to make pompous assertions. 
Josh
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The problem is articles from MSDN, or Google searches is they only give you snippets or mere glimmers of how the overall code/project should flow, whereas a good book gives you an overview of the technology and how to use correctly. There is no substitute yet for a good book.
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The ones I am looking for are usually out of print. It's pointless to even try.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br />
Peter Weyzen<br />
Staff Engineer<br />
<A HREF="http://www.soonr.com">SoonR Inc.</A>
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Just bought Managed DirectX 9 - Graphics and Game Programming by Tom Miller. Great book if you're looking to become an indie or just want to code a game for fun!
I'm just dabbling in it now, if anyone else wants to join me at the start of my game programming journey then give me a shout!
Would you like to see my bits... (and bytes)
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If books were cheaper I would buy a whole lot of them. Unfortunately the expense of life varies from nation to nation, and very unfortunately the price of books is about the same all over the world.
For instance I live in Romania and the minimum wage in this country is $122.74 amercian dollars (at todays rate exchange).
I'm not earning the minimum but pay-checks here aren't very far from the minimum.
So if for one developer from US let's say it takes two hours of work to earn the money to buy a book, for a developer in Romania it might take a week's work (without spending of course nothing of what he earns).
Sad...but true.
regards,
Mircea
Many people spend their life going to sleep when they’re not sleepy and waking up while they still are.
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I find that reading tech books by experts (Don Box, Jeffery Richter, and Juval Lowy come to mind) is great because it reveals the way they conceptualize things. Sure, you can find all the facts online. Facts really aren't very interesting by themselves. The conceptual models and analogies presented by an author, which put the facts into a context; now that is what makes reading a great book worthwhile. Very rarely will documentation or an article provide me with a whole new way of visualizing a technology.
Josh
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Right On...I agree with both ends of the spectrum here. I never really use books to solve specific problems anymore. That's why I come to CodeProject.
But seeing how someone like Don Box goes about his business really is where the value lies. If you want to continue your growth as a developer, you need to spend some time on methodology and technique, and learning from the masters (via their books) is still the best way to pick up those skills.
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Definitely. 5 ![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
Anna
Currently working mostly on: Visual Lint 
Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter
"Be yourself - not what others think you should be"
- Marcia Graesch
"Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart"
- A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work.
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Well said 
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I learn by example and documentation. And 99.9% of the docs/references are online. The last book I bought was 4 years ago at a yard sale and I don't think I ever opened it.
That's just me though 
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Yes, much documentation is on line. MSDN is invaluable.
CodeProject is great for examples. BUT! I turn to a
book when I want a little better explication. I program
in C++/CLI, rarely in C#; however, I bought a C# book
(as there were NO C++/CLI books released at the time)
just so I could get that depth of reference. And, have
used it several times. Read several chapters from end
to end. But; I rarely read a book cover to cover -- just
look up topics of interest -- and that after I have found
the on line stuff lacking.
WedgeSoft
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I had to face with problem related to imaging, (analysis, transformations, measurements, etc) and most of the book I use are 5..10 years old. (I can see under tons of papers 'The image processing handbook, 1998 and a math compendium of math and trigonometry ... yes.. 1986).
But also many books about code quality and process workflow can be read across years. Not to mention some C and C++ book like the one of S.B.Lippman.
I still read WIN32 Super Bible sometimes when I need to do some tricky operation on OS
Of course if you buy 'Develop application in 5 days with C# 5.69' you have to take in account that it's out-of-date as soon as the final document leave the author's PC to be published.
Adding some good book to your library (and read them) can be a very intellgent investment.
Davide
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I used to check out the C++ books in book stores at least once a week. Nowadays I don't bother, since there's been no new books that look interesting in years.  I got a couple books from the PDC, and I picked up Code Complete a couple months ago, but I haven't even cracked them open yet.
--Mike--
Visual C++ MVP
LINKS~! Ericahist | PimpFish | CP SearchBar v3.0 | C++ Forum FAQ
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Michael Dunn wrote: and I picked up Code Complete a couple months ago, but I haven't even cracked them open yet.
that would explain why they all seem similar.... 
_________________________
Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau.
Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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I tend to buy (every now and then) books, such as Code Complete, on generic programming topics rather than on specific products. However, I did buy some books on .NET when it first came out because it was new and I wanted to get up to speed quickly and, as a contractor, it was useful to get some more than superficial knowledge. But with .NET 2 I've largely not bothered. The one exception was the Wrox book on Generics, as that was a new topic and went into a lot of depth that you can't easily get elsewhere.
Kevin
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I am in a lucky position to get a subscription to books24x7.com via my employer. I must say that it is nice but I still love real hardcopy books.
I have a book case full of old books for which the technology is so old now (like VB6 and ASP). That's why e-Books are better because they are replaced by new ones all the time.
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- I do not have enough time to read them. I have some books waiting for me for years. I still regret the waste of money, since the price is made for USA and I live in Eastern Europe. I am always on the run. I need short and clear answers to my problems. I do not have time for philosophy. The ideal book would have 50 pages, at most.
- Probably there are only few books you should really read. Somebody said you must choose books the same way you choose friends: very carefully.
Regards,
zdf
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zdf wrote: I do not have enough time to read them
Yeah, that's true, especiallly when working on new stuff like .net, it such a vast framework to learn, you never get time of look at anything else.
Never send a human to do a machine's job Agent Smith
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