[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like "L...
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like "Learn Rust" or
"Learn Go"?
Or have you switched completely to Ebook?
Author : dev_0
Score : 122 points
Date : 2022-09-18 16:14 UTC (6 hours ago)
| ChoGGi wrote:
| Yes, it's nice to be able to make side notes, bookmarks, and
| place it in a remindable place.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Once there's a book for Rust of the same caliber and depth as
| e.g. Stroustrup's for C++, I'll get that. But "how to?" books.
| No. There's no point. The web does that.
|
| I also have a hard time reading books these days because I just
| fall asleep once I curl up with them.
|
| I do occasionally pick up reference books and flip through them
| but don't in general buy new ones. For some specialized domain
| I'll try to find classic CS textbooks on the topic. But their
| price has gotten crazy.
|
| But I did just line up all my classics (Knuth, Smalltalk Blue
| Book, "The Linux Programming Interface" etc.) in a nice line on
| my desk so they'd be visible in my webcam for calls ;-) Nice and
| pretentious.
| pfkurtz wrote:
| I'm studying Programming Rust (O'Reilly, 2nd edition one year
| old, 800+pp) and I think it's fantastic. I am a better
| programmer for it.
|
| 4.6 stars wtih 200+ reviews on Amazon, for what it's worth.
|
| (owner of Knuth and TLPI)
| mindcrash wrote:
| I have some ebooks (on general, steady, topics like "domain
| driven development" and "event sourcing" and the like), and I am
| still grabbing some nice bundles on Humble every now and then but
| I source most of my reading material from Safari / O'Reilly since
| a few years.
|
| My main reason to do this is because tech is moving extremely
| fast and you do not longer have to throw books away on topics
| which are no longer relevant.
|
| And a yearly sub at O'Reilly also prevents buying e-books on
| [enter the latest version of your favorite programming
| language/database/other tool here] over and over again...
| pGuitar wrote:
| https://libgen.is/ is good for sampling books
| account-5 wrote:
| For tech books I prefer the PDF version on a tablet. Search, and
| clickable links. Taught myself SQL, regex, sed and awk, and a few
| others that way. Recently found out I learn a lot watching demos
| on YouTube which I dismissed before. I do like a physical book
| for deep studying though.
| lexx wrote:
| I read on my mobile. If I fall in love with a book then i buy a
| physical copy for my library.
|
| Same with music and record collection.
|
| I want my kids to be able to browse my stuff and discover the
| previous decades as I did with my parent's collection
| zuramai wrote:
| No. I don't buy physical tech books. I prefer to read the digital
| source so I can learn from multiple source simultaneously. In
| case I want to read it again or come back to specific location in
| the book, I use bookmarks.
|
| The only books I buy physically is fiction and non-fiction books.
| Fiction is the best when I read it physically while chilling and
| having a cup of tea. It just doesn't work if I read it in my
| phone, it just distracting and I kinda hate blue light when I
| want to get off from any device to chill.
| codegeek wrote:
| I generally prefer physical Books but for tech, I prefer online
| version (ideally HTML or PDF). The reason is that it is easier to
| follow along especially if I am writing code and even copy/paste
| snippets if the book has those. Best tech books for me are those
| that are dead simple HTML/CSS with no JS so that I can just run
| it directly in browser without a server.
| jll29 wrote:
| I love physical books. E-books are a good supplement because of
| the searchability, but I don't enjoy reading e-books nearly as
| much as paper.
|
| Humans are very tactile, and the book is a visual cue that sits
| there and reminds one that "I wanted to finish reading this."
| It's also easy to skim-read and navigate in a physical volume.
|
| To me, even the order of books on the shelf is important, as they
| reflect the order of the material in my mind (e.g. computer
| science > programming languages > Rust).
|
| What is perhaps no longer worth buying are "how to" guides that
| have been superseded by Google + StackExchange.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| bold of you to assume i ever bought them to begin with.
| ExtremisAndy wrote:
| I have to. I definitely buy some tech books on Kindle and follow
| web tutorials too. I'm not against doing those things. But when I
| care to really understand a topic in tech, for reasons I'm not
| even sure I can explain, I need a real, physical textbook.
| Strangely enough, a lot of it has to do with my brain's need to
| mark important sections with a pencil (yes, I know I can
| highlight sections on the Kindle app too...but there's something
| about physically circling/underlining/drawing a star near a
| section with a pencil that helps me to recall it later).
| fifticon wrote:
| yes. I find they help me escape tutorial hell, or at least ease
| my mind on that concern.
| hmcamp wrote:
| Yes. This year I bought books on Elm and Haskell.
|
| I also read article and watch related conferences
| rubyfan wrote:
| Tech books are quickly out of date so it just feels like a waste
| of material. I'm not sure eBook is much better though.
| humblepie wrote:
| I usually buy both an e-book and a paper version of books I want
| to learn from. Most of my reading is done on the paper one. I
| like to re-read certain chapters or sections at really random
| times and places so that's where the e-book comes in. It's a more
| pricey scheme but I find it really helpful for me.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I am expecting 4 of them to land on my doorstep any moment now.
| downsides are of course cost and weight, upsides are that I can
| read them in bed and don't require a computer nearby. Not being
| able to type/cut/paste immediately is often an asset when I'm
| trying to get to grips with new concepts. Running the code in my
| head helps me form hypotheses and experimental goals.
| kjellsbells wrote:
| Yes, but not exclusively. The notion of 'casually leafing through
| a book and reading something that catches my eye' has no
| satisfactory analog for me in ebooks. Annotations are still kinda
| sucky on ebooks compared to marginalia, post-it notes amd what
| not. having a non electronic medium when i spend 50+ hours a week
| gawping at a screen is a nice mental break.
|
| dont get me wrong, im not a luddite. i do use ebooks, and they
| gave some killer features, but I prefer paper. Heres another
| slightly perverse example: search in ebook is too good. it takes
| you straight to the thing being requested. in doing so, it robs
| me of the experience of getting familiar with the totality of the
| text that i get by leafing through (think of it as slightly
| better linear search). over time, that leafing activity gives me
| a really strong mental map of the whole work that i just dont get
| with ebooks. ymmv.
| varispeed wrote:
| I buy physical tech books and ebooks only if there is no paper
| version available (then I print what is interesting to me).
|
| The reason is that I have ADHD and using ebooks is too slow. If
| flipping between pages takes me more than 0.1s I easily get bored
| often forget what I was looking for and start to procrastinate.
| There is also an additional reward for using a physical book,
| that you get to flip the pages that is akin to using a fidget
| spinner, so looking for information in physical book is more
| engaging.
|
| I can also have multiple books next to each other with quick
| access, which is not possible on ebook readers (as far as I know
| - you have to close one book, open another etc which takes
| forever and if I get a notification or something popping up, I
| can easily get distracted and start doing something else
| entirely).
| treeface9000 wrote:
| lawn wrote:
| I personally enjoy physical books more and I feel I learn better
| as well.
|
| So the answer is almost always yes, unless I borrow them.
| j_kao wrote:
| To be honest, I don't think using programming language (e.g.
| learn Go) books is a great way to approach learning as it's a bit
| too passive and often ends up as coffee table material. I'd argue
| trying to build a project and using the latest documentation
| helps things stick better. Obviously better if you have to do it
| for work.
|
| On the other hand, programming and architecture concepts (e.g.
| designing data intensive applications) make a lot more sense as
| books, since they are high level concepts. In that case, use
| whatever medium reduces distraction. That's often in physical
| book form.
| emehex wrote:
| Technical programming language books can be, and are great if
| commit to typing out every single line of code presented!
| lkrubner wrote:
| I just this week bought "Designing Data-Intensive Applications"
| by Martin Kleppmann.
| skydhash wrote:
| Same. Along with several others during the last 2 months.
| mavu wrote:
| Yes, because there is no replacement for paper books that has the
| same features.
| overgard wrote:
| To be honest it's pretty rare to go book at all for me. I mostly
| find free online resources to be good enough. I still have this
| giant bookshelf of outdated tech books that are pretty much just
| of value as fire fuel, so I really kind of hate physical books
| except for things that are timeless
| pjmlp wrote:
| I have switched to ebooks, given the rate as technical books get
| out of date, no need to keep killing trees for information that
| is outdated after one year.
|
| Only for non technical books do I still go for paper.
| pizza234 wrote:
| I've switched completely to ebook, but there are downsides.
|
| First is that the ebook annotation is clunkier than physical
| annotation, for various reasons (zooming, palm detection etc.).
|
| In addition to finding the right pdf annotator, one needs to find
| the right tablet (I choose a tablet because I like colors and
| smooth movement); the vast majority of the tablets are geared
| towards video consumption, and they have the 16:9 form factor
| (which is terrible for ebooks reading).
|
| The second is that once one find the most convenient pdf
| annotator, they will need to get into the ridicolous practice of
| buying ebooks, but then actually annotate pirated copies
| (otherwise, with DRM, one is bound to the producer's reader).
|
| Nonetheless, I personally find digital reading overall
| preferrable over the physical counterpart. The experience of
| reading Cracking the coding interview, after many years of
| ebooks, was odd and not so comfortable.
| adventured wrote:
| Completely to ebooks. I got tired of lugging tons of physical
| books around when I move, and also needing to store them
| somewhere.
| end_of_line wrote:
| Nope with an exception for CS academic theory. One year for CS is
| like a decade for human life and thus almost every IT book gets
| obsolete after a relase. That's why I read official docs or
| getting started, they are far more accurate and up to date. In
| rare occasions where doc is not too good, I check source code -
| it never lies.
| lettergram wrote:
| Yeah it really depends on the book.
|
| I have a lot of algorithm, math and theory books. Theory rarely
| changes, it's just added onto.
|
| I also have a few books on C around that I've worked through
| and use as a reference.
|
| Other than that, I just check docs.
| talideon wrote:
| Yes, I buy physical books. It's for purely practical reasons: the
| interface is better. With physical books, you can flip back and
| forth more easily and insert more useful notes. Even things like
| footnotes and endnotes still work better in physical books.
|
| While I have technical ebooks, they tend to be the kind that
| don't require much cross referencing, i.e., the kind that can be
| read cover to cover like a novel.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| never did, books become outdated too quickly, so I use online
| resources
| sharikous wrote:
| Only the ones I know I will eventually read from cover to cover
| (not always sequentially, however). Usually this means the high
| quality ones.
|
| Sometimes I buy a book that in retrospect is not as interesting
| as I thought, and I regret it. Space and weight are precious
| resources.
|
| There is something about reading from a screen, even the e-Ink
| ones, that does not match the experience of reading from paper,
| in my view. I can't remember being engaged to an ebook as I am
| sometimes from a good paper book.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| When I wanted to learn something new, I used to go and buy 10
| books on the subject. I would find something useful in all of
| them, but rarely, in fact never, did a single book have
| everything I needed. And half the books would rubbish. But $500
| got me the information I needed.
|
| Now I go out and buy 10 Udemy courses and have the same
| experience: 5 are rubbish and maybe two cover everything I need.
| pamoroso wrote:
| I no longer buy physical books, tech or otherwise, as in 2010 I
| switched completely to ebooks.
|
| Actually, I recently bought a couple of decades-old tech books of
| retrocomputing value. I found digital copies I regularly
| reference, but those books are so valuable I want backups.
| ajhurliman wrote:
| Yes, I prefer the physical experience more. It's more portable
| (holding a book in a good reading position is easier than holding
| a laptop in a good reading position).
|
| Page navigation is also easier and doesn't change when the
| viewport is adjusted, which is really jarring.
|
| Plus it's a reminder that I've got the book and should read it,
| as opposed to existing only as a tab in Brave.
| omgmajk wrote:
| I do buy physical tech books still but I tend to not use them as
| much as before. However, I still find value in having it on the
| table and using it as a reference at times, I think mostly
| because it forces me to switch focus from my screen to something
| else and that makes it easier to focus on learning rather than
| staring at my code.
| brightball wrote:
| Yes. Whenever possible.
|
| When I'm reading a book I don't want to be near a computer. Even
| a technical book, I will read first and then come back to do work
| multiple bits of sample code later.
| adolph wrote:
| Conceptually, the book is a mediocre method of learning a
| language or tech subject. Anything "Learn X the hard way" with
| recent commits will be more helpful. The concept is to run the
| exercises needed to gain fluency in the key features and
| accessing/understanding the core documentation. A standalone book
| frozen in time with idiosyncratic documentation is not helpful.
|
| At their best, books can provide analogies and parables to build
| a narrative about a technology without specifics.
| sylvain_kerkour wrote:
| Personally, no. I've completely switched to ebooks.
|
| That being said, I'm the author of an ebook about Rust and
| Security (Black Hat Rust[0]) that sold thousands of copies, and
| I've been asked a few times for a physical edition: some prefer
| to have the hardcopy version on the desk when studying and
| programming.
|
| [0]https://kerkour.com/black-hat-rust
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| As many misgivings about dead trees that anyone may have, they
| sure are the way better format if you're buying someone a gift.
|
| Cool book by the way I put it on my list of things to check
| out!
| winter_squirrel wrote:
| mpalczewski wrote:
| I do both.
|
| Fiction: almost exclusively ebook. Sometimes there's a special
| edition that is hard cover and has pages that feel nicely in your
| hand. I'll buy that. The experience becomes more than just words.
| In general if it is just words read in order no flipping back and
| forth, just read the story ebook works really well. You get to
| read at a comfortable font size, don't have to keep the book
| open(cheaply made paperbacks can be annoying, imagine reading war
| and peace or atlas shrugged), don't have to worry about a book
| mark. It estimates for you how much time left in the chapter.
| It's rather nice.
|
| Coding: Almost exclusively physical. Code listing don't work that
| well on a kindle, or iPad. It's nice to read a little bit, go
| look at the code, read a little more. ebooks suck for this.
|
| Recipe books, reference material, also physical. flipping through
| an ebook doesn't always work well.
|
| Non-fiction: Mixed. For expediency e-books. To serve as a
| reminder to read, physical books. If I just read a topic, want to
| read more on that same topic I'd rather not loose momentum and go
| straight to an ebook. If I'm traveling, I also prefer an ebook,
| extra weight to carry isn't always great. A physical book is an
| object though and experience and sometimes that can be helpful.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I still like physical books for the fact that I learned to study
| by doing a lot of highlighting and note taking. It's just a bit
| more of a pain in the ass to do all of that when you've just got
| a PDF.
|
| You get what you pay for in a good book by a good author from a
| reputed publisher most of the time.
|
| They're SO HEAVY, though, and since I live on the road my books
| are my heaviest possessions. I always end up giving them away
| when I'm done with them full of highlighted stuff which people
| actually seem to appreciate.
|
| This is the last one I powered through which I recommend anyone
| writing go get a copy of:
|
| https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/concurrency-in-go/97814...
| pera wrote:
| I highly prefer physical because I already spend too much time in
| front of a screen, plus I like the versatility they offer (e.g.
| highlighting, making notes, bookmarking, moving them around,
| etc.). The only digital books I have bought were from the Beta /
| Early Access programs of Manning and the Pragmatic Bookshelf, and
| few from independent authors who decide to go digital
| exclusively.
| erganemic wrote:
| I can second the comments that a solid E ink device makes reading
| pdf/epub stuff a lot more enjoyable, and I greatly prefer it to
| reading on a traditional screen.
|
| That said, for exactly the class of books (didactic/reference)
| that your question calls out, there's no substitute for physical
| books. For me, so much of reading a book meant to instruct
| involves flipping back quickly to an earlier chapter to refresh
| my memory on the exact definition of a concept, or paging rapidly
| through a section to see what headings it covers, or switching
| from a page in one part of the book to a page in an entirely
| different part so I can compare their content. There just isn't a
| frictionless analogue for this, even with E ink devices: and when
| you're trying to learn stuff, a solution with friction is barely
| a solution at all.
| stickyricky wrote:
| Physical books for everything. I've been burned by too many tech
| companies to trust ebooks. I keep a collection of PDFs that are
| freely available online but otherwise I buy physical copies.
| skydhash wrote:
| After years learning from e-books (the only physical book I owned
| was "The C Programming Language"), I decided to go back to
| physical books because I just can't look at an LCD screen that
| long. I have a Kindle I read fiction books on, and it's great,
| but for EPUBs, not PDFs.
|
| I've only bought textbooks in the beginning, just to have
| something that can last months or years of study, but just bought
| a few related to programming languages. Sometimes I would rather
| not open my laptop or tablet (tons of distractions waiting to
| happen) just to revisit a few concepts or to do a cursory glance
| at a few pages.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I buy physical books for this.
|
| I tried ebooks a while back but just couldn't get into them.
|
| I use ebooks for front-to-back reading purposes, but that's not
| how I consume a book for learning. I jump around, revisit spots,
| and even reference multiple books at once sometimes.
| flashgordon wrote:
| I still buy physical books just not for technical stuff (for
| learning stacks, languages etc I do it by building and
| stackoverflow-ing and building my person collection of recipes).
| Once exception to this is theoretical stuff which I feel I get a
| lot out of from textbooks (eg the dragon book, Tanenbaum's X, Ben
| Pierce's books on type theory etc). Too bad text books are
| expensive as F though!
|
| For non-tech stuff (fiction, leadership etc) I find lying down
| with a good physical book unbeatable for me.
|
| Logically eReaders are supposed to be superior with not taking
| and bookmarking and all that but I just have not been able
| extract the same satisfaction from them sadly.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Not since I started subscribing to O'Reilly's online ebook system
| confusingly called "Safari."
| Ambix wrote:
| Yes, paper books on hard tech just easier for performant and/or
| thorough reading. And I just love the taste and look of real
| books.
| betaby wrote:
| Yes I buy sometimes. Reason? In Canada sometimes an ebook is
| priced the same or nearly the same as a paper version AND you get
| ebook version coupon anyway.
| randomdata wrote:
| Neither. The web provides all the resources I've ever needed for
| such topics.
| jcpst wrote:
| Yes, and No.
|
| Yes, I still buy physical books to learn something new. I value
| being away from a screen. But I don't buy the "Learn X" style of
| introductory material. All that info is online.
|
| I buy the dense deep-dives that are filled with advanced esoteric
| knowledge, and may take years to grok. Things that will not
| change much after 5-10 years. Something that I can reference and
| go back to over and over.
| justrudd wrote:
| Same. Except the books I buy aren't advanced :)
|
| The books I can see from my couch - Code Complete (McConnell),
| Transaction Processing (Gray), Algorithms (Cormen), Algorithms
| (Sedgwick), Starting Strength (Rippetoe), All the 5/3/1 books
| (Wendler), etc.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Yes as I hate reading books on a computer.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| I was a very early convert to e-books. I had one of the original
| Kindles, eventually a Kindle DX to read larger-format books (like
| tech stuff).
|
| I would still buy books sometimes (fiction and non), for special
| editions or for things where I was buying direct (or from a good
| publisher) and wanted to support the author, but, I've completely
| stopped at this point.
|
| At some point during the pandemic and lockdowns I realized I was
| drowning in physical media and I've made a very conscious effort
| to divest myself of as much of it as I can, donated tons of books
| and movies and I've bought none since.
| neilv wrote:
| eBooks. An annoying thing is price: I want to be able to read on
| my Linux laptop (without DRM, and without reading through some
| ridiculous Web site), _but_ I 'll see the book for less money in
| paper format than it is in legitimate ebook format.
|
| I also buy a lot fewer books than I used to. Early in my career,
| I was a "books person", and would line my office/cubicle shelves
| with a large collection of books. Today, I can get a lot of
| information for free on the Web. When I go to buy a technical
| book now, it's because I have an important major need of info on
| a topic, and a particular book is known to be especially valuable
| collection/presentation for that.
| xanathar wrote:
| Yes. It's mildly embarrassing but I've learned most languages and
| tech in the same way: buy a book, leave it in the bathroom and
| whenever I pee or poop I open it at a random page and read. If
| it's a new page, good if not then it's a good refresh.
|
| With ebooks it just doesn't work, with mobile devices I get
| distracted.
| spoiler wrote:
| I usually read hn on the loo (not a shitpost pun/joke) as idle
| reading, and sometimes I discover interesting products or news.
| Aside: it feels like being on the toilet is the most "me time"
| I get lately, so maybe I should change that lol.
|
| Do you read the book first start to finish, and then add it to
| your bathroom library after for this random reading, or do you
| go straight to random loo reads?
| xanathar wrote:
| Usually it goes directly too loo reads except maybe the first
| evening where I'm "excited" of the new toy and read it
| outside, or if I need it as a reference for some reason.
|
| If I don't have a basic understanding of the topic I read the
| first few chapters sequentially before starting the random
| picking, though.
| ExtremisAndy wrote:
| Wow. This method is so ridiculous I just might have to copy it.
|
| Seriously though, I hadn't thought about using that time (which
| most people are guaranteed to have every single day, several
| times a day) for learning new things. I think I may start using
| this method for exploring things that I'd "like to learn some
| day" but that aren't urgent/currently important for my job.
| This would be a way to at least make me get started learning
| something genuinely new!
| hahnchen wrote:
| I bought a kindle tor that very reason. I think it's worth it
| since you can't really get distracted on that
| pfkurtz wrote:
| Leaving technical books in the bathroom is a crucial hack for
| lifelong adult learning.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Instead of that I read technical books/websites on/near a
| laptop that I can make flashcards on, then do Anki on the
| toilet.
| pfkurtz wrote:
| Really, I have little piles everywhere around the house I
| tend to park for any length of time; I've never been able
| to do flashcards since my mom made me do them a ton when I
| was little, one of the ways I just do not learn.
| pessimizer wrote:
| I grew up the opposite; I never directed my learning in
| any particular direction, just picked up everything by
| curiosity and osmosis. I've only discovered in my 40s
| that you can use tools like Anki to just relentlessly
| hammer a subject into submission i.e. you can choose to
| know stuff instead of always having to be spontaneously
| fascinated by stuff.
| akoncius wrote:
| ebooks all the way. seems wasteful when after two years the book
| becomes outdated and you need newer version of it.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| Honestly, no, because the book prices are kind of high for the
| average income in my country. I usually download them from the
| internet (quasi-legally - since internet laws are effectively
| non-existant here) and print them at home if I really want
| paperback.
| leeuw01 wrote:
| Yes, I prefer physical books as they allow for easier annotating
| & switching back and forth between pages.
| myle wrote:
| Try a good eink device.
| hbogert wrote:
| This. My 10" e reader, boox note 2, is a godsend. It runs a
| barebones android which gives you almost zero distractions.
| Annotations are great with the touch sensitive pen.
|
| My reading increased 5-10x, b/c the friction to get that
| heavy book is gone. Also no more waking up the misses with a
| bed light, as the backlight is pretty subtle.
|
| Sorry for the sales pitch, but these devices are just
| awesome.
| redtriumph wrote:
| Did you consider remarkable for your usecase ever? I am in
| market for e-note taking and am torn between boox note 2 vs
| remarkable.
|
| I am not looking to be locked in for subscription just for
| pulling my notes from device to another PC
| hbogert wrote:
| Considered it. Iirc, it doesn't have a backlight, as the
| reading part was more important than the writing part,
| the choice was easily made.
|
| I remember remarkable saying the extra layer needed for
| the backlight would be detrimental for the writing
| experience.
| f1shy wrote:
| Yes. As others stated, for non-fiction still my go-to is
| physical. Ideally I like to have the two, so I can "ctrl-f" if I
| want to find something fast. Also for example I bought a copy of
| "Python in a nutshell" because I can read it on the train very
| easily.
| 1253 wrote:
| It depends entirely on the type of information. If it's something
| like Pragmatic Programmer I prefer physical copy. If it's a
| reference book like how to do x in language y pdf makes it faster
| to locate information.
| tessierashpool wrote:
| I do, but way less than I used to.
|
| I do it partly so I can dog-ear pages, write on them, and
| highlight them, but mostly because quite a few publishers still
| just absolutely suck at formatting code samples in e-books. as an
| industry, they're 20 years into it and they haven't figured it
| out, which is just pitiful, and paying attention to that on a
| publisher-by-publisher basis would be an absurd waste of memory.
|
| if I buy an ebook, it's almost guaranteed to be one the author
| published themselves.
|
| edit: the other reason I do it is I have very good memory when it
| comes to where in a book I saw something. I can often just pick
| up the book and open it to the exact page, even years afterwards.
| I recently did that with one of Elena Feranti's Neapolitan
| novels, and they're often over 1000 pages. I haven't seen
| anything equivalent with ebooks, so for me, in that particular
| respect, they're inferior.
| faizshah wrote:
| I have a huge collection of print books. I prefer print books
| because with ebooks I can easily just forget about them like any
| other webpage, blog post or paper. But when I have a physical
| copy it's in my face, I can leave it on my desk, its a reminder
| to read it.
| dgloria wrote:
| I feel a market gap for a software. :D
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Yes.
|
| I read fiction as ebooks (basically exclusively since days of
| palm pilot and Treo, then kindle and phone and tablets), but far
| prefer physical books when learning a new topic including tech.
| Few reasons but I think it's at least partially because:
|
| 1. It's easier to mark or hold with my finger e.g. A table or
| reference or definition page, then return or glance at it as I
| progress next few pages of that topic. I find it hard to go back
| and forth in ebook,triply so on e-ink with slow refresh.
|
| 2. I cannot explain this but with ebook I don't get a sense of
| progression or framework relationship. I think with physical book
| my brain "maps" knowledge to something that's at beginning middle
| or end of book. And or it's keenly aware that this topot took two
| pagds thjs topic took 7 pages. Layout of tables and content and
| lists is firmer. Not sure how to explain it but I find that
| physical progression through the book solidifies it in my brain.
|
| (I don't do much note taking or highlighting but I suppose it's
| good to have as an easy physical option. While I type all my work
| notes and my todos are electronic, I don't do really do
| electronic book annotation for whatever reason.)
|
| Overall, it's at the point where existence of really good
| physical book may influence whether I dig into an optional
| technical / learning topic or not.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| > 2. I cannot explain this but with ebook I don't get a sense
| of progression or framework relationship. I think with physical
| book my brain "maps" knowledge to something that's at beginning
| middle or end of book. And or it's keenly aware that this topot
| took two pagds thjs topic took 7 pages. Layout of tables and
| content and lists is firmer. Not sure how to explain it but I
| find that physical progression through the book solidifies it
| in my brain.
|
| I'll just post my favorite comment again
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30183933):
|
| >> Also, when I try to remember something I have red on a
| printed book, - sometimes - I can remember where on the page it
| was written, what else was on the page, or even what the page
| looked like. I experience none of that when reading on my
| smartphone.
|
| >This is so obvious to me but more than once I have hit the
| typical robot HN user on this topic for whom it doesn't matter
| the medium because he's an eidetic machine. So I'll just post
| this:
|
| >> Beyond treating individual letters as physical objects, the
| human brain may also perceive a text in its entirety as a kind
| of physical landscape. When we read, we construct a mental
| representation of the text in which meaning is anchored to
| structure. The exact nature of such representations remains
| unclear, but they are likely similar to the mental maps we
| create of terrain--such as mountains and trails--and of man-
| made physical spaces, such as apartments and offices. Both
| anecdotally and in published studies, people report that when
| trying to locate a particular piece of written information they
| often remember where in the text it appeared. We might recall
| that we passed the red farmhouse near the start of the trail
| before we started climbing uphill through the forest; in a
| similar way, we remember that we read about Mr. Darcy rebuffing
| Elizabeth Bennett on the bottom of the left-hand page in one of
| the earlier chapters.
|
| >https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-paper-
| scr...
|
| >And repost my comment from one of those times:
|
| >>> The value provided by a physical map of a book is knowing
| how far along you are in the book, yet that's also available in
| a visual form in an ebook as well. You can even riffle through
| pages on most e-readers as well, seeing a preview of the page
| as you move quickly forward or backwards.
|
| >>> Aside from weight, what value is the physical map really
| providing?
|
| >> No, it provides more.
|
| >> Actually your brain maps physical properties of the book to
| actual content, creating an overlay map over the story or the
| content (and our brain is really good at mentally mapping
| things). This is that map that is being used to know where in
| the book a particular piece of information is.
|
| >> Reading on e-reader is more linear than reading a paper
| book. See: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-
| paper-scr...
| https://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.236/ and
| https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers-absorb...
|
| >> Besides, no e-reader today can let your riffle through pages
| as fast as paper book.
|
| >> When you are in a novel, or in a manual, you have some
| kinetic and touch feedback to build memories of where's what.
| The book becomes an extension (a la proprioception) with much
| less friction than an e-read for which you have to wait for
| visual feedback (screen refreshing).
|
| >> With paper books things are at the tip of your fingers.
|
| >> E-reader have more friction.
|
| >> That's a reason why I only read novels on e-reader and jot
| notes in a notepad for non-fiction books.
|
| >> If I had the budget I'd only have physical books.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Opposite. I need ctrl-F on books. I get in, read and then I am
| able to revisit things I made need to quickly.
| bergenty wrote:
| Prefer physical books for everything except when I need to
| ctrl+f but there is usually a pdf version of the book I can
| do that on and then just actually go there on the physical.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| While I feel the same way towards point 2, I actually find it
| easier to follow along on a monitor. Sure, it requires a big
| monitor to display both the doc and the ide/editor, and
| possibly even the output (say the browser if it's a web
| framework).
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| Right, but that's cheating :-). I like _everything_ better on
| my large monitors.
|
| But they have zero portability, so to me they were not part
| of this comparison. If I am learning about a net new topic
| that I want to really dive into and engross myself and
| dedicate and get into the zone, I like to sit down on a comfy
| chair, lie down on the couch, or bench in a park, or best of
| all bring the book to shady lounge chair in Cuba lol! Kindle,
| tablet and physical book can do those things, my monitor
| setup less so :-)
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| I agree completely. I'd like to expand on your #1. I think that
| physical books make it much easier to have multiple books all
| open on your desk as you look between all of them, and also to
| have bookmarks within a single book that you flip between.
|
| As you say, I love ebooks for fiction. But the folks building
| these apps and devices still haven't hit on an interaction
| model that works well for non-fiction.
| DougWebb wrote:
| In Star Trek they're always carrying around their PADDs while
| working, and when they've been shown to be really busy they'd
| have a bunch of PADDs laid out on the desk in front of them.
| You obviously need a bunch of Kindles.
| atchoo wrote:
| This is the reason I love ebooks on a proper workstation with
| a huge monitor. I can fit eight or more books open at once...
| but more likely 3 or 4 plus a web-browser and notes.
|
| I might have three copies of the same book open at once. One
| for linear reading, one for search and one for cross
| referencing. Much better than a physical book. A bookmarks
| side-bar works well in e-readers if there are specific
| locations you regularly need access to.
|
| Tablets and physical e-readers suck in comparison to a proper
| computer. You also might need to strip DRM to get out of some
| walled-garden reader that prevents you opening multiple
| instances of the same book. Copy paste is a killer feature
| for note taking (and another reason to ditch ecosystem
| readers that interfere with copy paste like Apple books).
| darkteflon wrote:
| I like this a lot - particularly as there may be a range of
| reasons that you can't get hold of a particular book in
| physical form.
|
| I've never used or looked into non-ecosystem e-readers. Do
| you have any recommendations?
| atchoo wrote:
| I use the Calibre e-reader with custom style overrides to
| get my preferred spacing, margins etc. It's ugly out of
| the box but doesn't require much tweaking to look like
| Apple Books if you know css. Works great on
| MacOs/Linux/Windows (I use them all). If a book has
| hardcoded fonts/styles/spacing I don't like then I use
| the Calibre editor to remove them.
|
| I don't use Calibre as a library tool, I find that pretty
| annoying. I just use a git repo with folders for genres
| and markdown file with each book for notes.
|
| On Android I use ReadEra.
| the_af wrote:
| I agree with everything you said except that for me it _also_
| applies to fiction.
|
| I read a lot of fiction on my Kindle, and it's never as
| satisfying as leafing through a paper novel. I don't read start
| to finish, I tend to go back to favorite passages, or to re-
| read a character's introduction some chapters before (and if I
| get lost, some other passage is sure to catch my eye!) and
| ebooks make this painful.
|
| My way of reading is very "physical", for lack of a better
| word. Ebooks are not good for this at all.
|
| I still like my Kindle, because nothing beats having hundreds
| of novels on a single lightweight device. But to me that's its
| biggest and almost only advantage. (Secondary: adjusting font
| size as my eyesight grows less precise with age).
| UnpossibleJim wrote:
| I am a voracious physical note taker when learning, personally.
| There's something about the physicality of it that helps it
| stay in my brain. I rarely have to read my notes, once I've
| written them. That's part if the reason I enjoy hard copies so
| much, I find scribbling in the margins can have much the same
| effect, if not as well. Just a small summation of the paragraph
| in scribble form, to cut through the jargon, of possible and
| underlining the actionable phraseology keeps it locked in =[
| vl wrote:
| I haven't used Javascript/Typescript for the few years and some
| needed to refresh it, so I bought a copy of _Modern JavaScript
| for the Impatient_. This is great book, can 't recommend it
| highly enough. Few hours reading and I was up to speed.
|
| The trick is though that you need to spend some time choosing a
| book. Random software book is crap. In my case I needed a
| concise refresher, so I found this specific book after reading
| reviews for bunch of the books on Amazon. I.e. before getting a
| book, figure out what you actually expect from it.
| rychco wrote:
| Yes occasionally. I try to purchase most texts as PDFs to avoid
| the hassle of moving hundreds of lbs of books around, but will
| splurge on high quality physical texts.
|
| The only issue is that there's a lot of really high quality work
| out there! It's hard to be picky.
| peterhi wrote:
| I have found ebooks (at least on my Kindle) make reading code
| very hard. Wraps code which is not a good look for a language
| like Python and not much code is shown on each page. Also I find
| that I can not flip back and forth when I need to check up on
| something
|
| I can scan through a physical book by just flicking pages, the
| Kindle does not update fast enough
|
| For non technical books, books that I will read in a linear
| manner, the Kindle is just fine
| xyst wrote:
| no - they are immediately outdated by the time it gets in your
| hands.
| haunter wrote:
| I'd buy physicals if they would fit my budget but alas not.
| Recent example: $60 book, published by a US company. With
| shipping + customs it comes out $130 to Europe. At that point I'd
| really need that book to justify paying double price just because
| I live at the wrong place.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I _like_ physical books, but IME for programming languages they
| suffer from getting out of date too fast
| rdxm wrote:
| yodsanklai wrote:
| I much prefer physical books, but as I'm adopting a more nomadic
| lifestyle, I'm having issue carrying my books.
|
| Question to ebooks readers, why system do you recommend to read
| them? iPad? kindle? computer? phone? what's the preferred format?
|
| I don't like reading on the computer as I'm too easily
| distracted. And I had bad experience with kindle (many years ago,
| it was painfully slow, just good enough for a novel but not
| suitable for technical books).
| itake wrote:
| Yes.
|
| I bought a book on go concurrency. I love seeing it on my shelf.
| I loved reading it on the train to work.
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| the only stuff I buy for paper are books where the knowledge
| isn't going out of date.
|
| a book on graph theory, the math of deep learning or a math heavy
| treatment of graphics programming, yes, I'll get the dead tree
| version.
|
| ${framework ofthe week api version X} in 21 days? -> ebook only
| mikessoft_gmail wrote:
| I like to read in the public transport. Electronic books are the
| best choice
| number6 wrote:
| I recently bought "Code" so it can be discovered by my children
| when they are older.
|
| This is the only reason I ordered a hardcopy.
| GeneT45 wrote:
| I don't buy everything in dead-tree format, but I always have a
| few books for evening reading in bed. (My reading is almost
| exclusively tech books.)
| [deleted]
| intellectronica wrote:
| Only ebooks. But books themselves, the good ones, are a really
| useful resource that I still haven't been able to replace despite
| the availability of many other free resources like blogs and
| video tutorials.
| prebeta wrote:
| eBooks help me fight against the world conspiracy of making fonts
| smaller ;). All the features on PDF readers far outweigh hard
| copies. Reading anything hard copy makes me feel older. PDFs are
| really awesome. Put it in the cloud and access anywhere, any
| time. space savings, saving trees, they are great.
| tester756 wrote:
| Yes, I like physical books
| orsenthil wrote:
| To learn programming, I think, doing helps. So keeping something
| online to copy-type/try, understand (and repeat) has been a
| preferable way for me. Ebooks work for this workflow better. I
| can easily skim the content and get to the point soon with
| ebooks.
| dc-programmer wrote:
| Yes. The clarity of graphics and diagrams is often degraded when
| shown on a device. In the past I tried getting around this by
| using one of those jumbo sized tablets but that was too hard on
| my eyes (even after turning on night mode). If there something
| akin to a massive kindle out there, I would give it another go.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I like having a physical reminder of books I should be reading. I
| do eventually get to them. With ebooks it's not the same. Plus I
| can read it away from a computer and other distractions. The
| value of my time spent reading a book dwarves the actual cost of
| the book and if I decide I'm never going to read a book I can
| donate it. I also get ebook copies of the same books as a
| reference I can access anywhere.
| pknerd wrote:
| Majority of my tech learning relies on Text and Video Tutorials
| on Youtube and off-course documentation. Last book I bought was
| DID(Data Intensive applications) 3 years ago. Prior to that I did
| not buy tech books for 10+ years.
| MikeTheRocker wrote:
| I like to buy technical books. There's some inexplicable
| satisfaction from holding them, and I like the way they decorate
| my house on a bookshelf.
| mbStavola wrote:
| I still buy physical books, I just find them easier to read when
| I really want to concentrate and take the material in.
| alexott wrote:
| I read many technical books as ebooks (epub or pdf), but these
| are primarily about "current tech" that will most probably become
| obsolete in 2-3 years. But I buy real books for more fundamental
| technical areas, where the information will be relevant for a
| long time. Another factor is if the book is math heavy - around
| deep learning & related topics, although in many cases PDFs are
| ok.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| I like the physical book. Ebook readers just aren't large enough
| to accommodate the size that they print these books in, and I'd
| rather use my screen for the code I'm editing without needing to
| tab back to the book.
| WaitWaitWha wrote:
| Yes.
|
| I do not need to charge a book when on the road.
| treffer wrote:
| I still buy non fiction books like this but mostly for others.
|
| I usually read the ebook. Once done I put the hardcopy on my
| bookshelf.
|
| Then whenever someone might need one of these I lend it out.
|
| The books I know have helped others: Venture Deals, Crucial
| Conversations, The hard thing about hard things, The GO
| programming language, Seeking SRE, Site Reliability Engineering
| and many many more.
|
| I am also always happy when a book returns and you can see some
| wear. It makes me smile.
| mellavora wrote:
| One of my favorite reads was <The Sextant Handbook> (Bruce Bauer,
| 2nd edition). I bought it because I wanted to learn how to use a
| sextant. This book is THE book for learning how to operate a
| sextant.
|
| I quickly realized that actually I didn't want to learn how to
| use a sextant.
|
| I read it cover to cover. All those important points, so well
| structured and organized, and I didn't have to remember a single
| one of them! I could just let it pass like water.
|
| More relaxing than fiction. No plot to follow, no characters to
| remember, just beautiful, detailed instructions which I could
| blithely ignore.
|
| best vacation book of the decade.
| phist_mcgee wrote:
| And to this day, still stuck on that deserted island - at an
| unknown latitude and longitude.
| buttocks wrote:
| No, but I borrow them from the library! Paper books are great,
| even more so when you can read them for free.
| shakezula wrote:
| Yes. I typically read one fiction and one non-fiction book at a
| time, and the non-fiction is usually a programming book. My most
| recent has been Programming Rust which I've really enjoyed.
| prebeta wrote:
| eBooks help me fight against the conspiracy of the world making
| fonts smaller ;). The features of PDF readers far outweigh
| hardcopies. Being able to control + to be able read without
| straining my eyes is priceless. Marking and searching are easy
| and fast. Saving space and the planet. Reading hardcopies makes
| feel old(er).
| 727564797069706 wrote:
| Which PDF readers do you recommend?
| willjp wrote:
| zathura is fantastic. minimalistic UI and vi-style
| keybindings. It has a searchable table of contents, and
| customizable keybindings. recolor (invert-colours) is nice
| for night-time reading.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| The discussion is interesting, but I also created a HN Poll, for
| those who like statistics:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32889294
|
| 6 votes so far.
| ps901 wrote:
| I once was spending large amounts of money on physical tech
| books, mostly on new programming languages or frameworks.
| However, I felt that by the time I was buying them they were
| already outdated often. Today, I usually start learning by just
| doing it, using the new tech and keep my way googling until I
| somehow become comfortable.
| [deleted]
| sakras wrote:
| I definitely prefer physical books for technical stuff since it's
| easier to look back at stuff I'd read before. On the other hand,
| I never buy books about programming languages, mostly about
| algorithmic stuff. If I am trying to learn a programming language
| I usually find some electronic material just so I can copy-paste
| code examples.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| No, I don't buy tech books. They helped earlier in my career to
| build my intuition but now I find tech books too high level and
| repetitive to be useful. At this point my intuition is strong
| enough that I've seen and understood most concepts at some point
| and the nuances and syntactic changes are the most important. All
| this said I find ebooks very difficult for reference material.
| Indexing into them is clumsy for me - I assume it's mostly
| inexperience - but indexing into a physical book is a pattern I'm
| well familiar with and do it effectively. I've raised my now 8
| year old daughter with an ereader her whole life with the goal
| that she become so facile with the tool that when she goes to
| mars and they're conserving delta-v she won't be at a
| disadvantage.
| falcolas wrote:
| I'll generally download a local copy of the language spec and the
| standard library docs. Rust's borrow checker aside, most mainline
| programming languages have enough in common it's usually all I
| need. Google's there when I need more.
|
| Elixir and forth were the big exceptions.
| account-5 wrote:
| What did you do for them?
| falcolas wrote:
| Mostly reading a lot of blog posts and whichever e-material
| was available. Also read a lot of code.
|
| So on the scale for the original question, ebook over regular
| books. I used to use physical books in the past, but with the
| broad availability of material on the web, my need for them
| dropped dramatically.
| runjake wrote:
| I still like paper books for hard tech.
|
| If I'm glancing or lightly learning, I use the Apple Books app on
| my iPad. Kindle is for novels only -- it doesn't handle tech book
| layouts well.
|
| Right now, I'm reading a paper Go book, but a Docker ebook.
| frizlab wrote:
| I don't buy tech books. Ever. If I want to learn a language I'll
| go straight to code (find any _simple_ project to do with it).
|
| It's my way of doing it. Might not be the best, but it works for
| me.
| dangarbri3 wrote:
| Same here, books on specific technologies are useless to me
| because you can learn more from the official manuals and
| playing with it than from someone else's interpretation of it X
| versions ago.
|
| The tech books I do get are more meta, books about programming
| in general or design in general, things that you can't just
| find in a manual.
| arcticadder wrote:
| There's "tech" beyond programming languages - for example,
| computer networks.
| dijit wrote:
| I just can't focus as easily on e-books. I always end up feeling
| like I need to be doing something _more_ productive if I 'm in
| front of the computer.
| jasode wrote:
| I used to buy hundreds of physical computer books but I've
| switched 100% to ebooks.
|
| I noticed that I finished the ebooks more often than physical
| ones and when I dissected my behavior, I realized that it was the
| _heavy weight (e.g. 3 lbs) of the physical book that nudged me
| away from reading it_. You can 't hold a thick computer book in 1
| hand. And propping it on your chest while laying down is also
| uncomfortable. Yes, the K&R C Language book is thin and light but
| a lot of books are 500+ pages and just too bulky to conveniently
| carry around and read anywhere.
|
| For the few books that I need a physical reading experience to
| write notes on, I use the ebook and print one chapter at a time
| and then staple the pages. That chapter is then thin like a
| "magazine".
|
| With ebooks, I've loaded the same titles on both the iPad and
| iPhone and can read a few pages anywhere while waiting in line.
| drBonkers wrote:
| Yes, this is the same with me. I love physical books, but being
| able to hangout anywhere with an iPad mini and read is the
| killer feature that's getting me to switch over.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Never did, still don't. I pretty much figure things out by doing
| them, or read occasional articles.
| willjp wrote:
| Definitely yes. I love them, seeing them on my bookshelf is
| motivation to return to them and complete them. Separately, I
| also love ebooks for night reading and not requiring space on my
| bookshelf.
| pyjarrett wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Their tactile and physical nature helps me remember things. They
| also don't run out of batteries and I write notes in them. I also
| spend a lot of my day looking at screens, so it's nice to have
| something which isn't a screen to look at.
|
| I do envy the people who can read ebooks though, it just doesn't
| work as well for me.
| vikasosmium wrote:
| I did borrow it from the library but eventually found more up to
| date knowledge on internet. I prefer book.
| mkl95 wrote:
| Between ~2017 and now I bought one physical tech book and many
| ebooks.
| onehair wrote:
| I have learned about 5 new languages in the past 5 years, mostly
| by creating a Tetris clone every time. since all of them pick up
| the same patterns except for Rust, I only read quick guides to
| get acquainted to the syntax. then started learning the languages
| from specific concepts I needed to touch on before delving in the
| architecture of the project. With rust I did read the entire
| https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ but it was enough for me, CTRL+F
| is a big thing for me, and the book here wasn't slow as most big
| programming books are. But all of this was after +12 in
| programming. I do remember reading C++ & PHP from a book and
| loving it. But those were my first books and my entry level books
| which I wouldn't apply now.
|
| tl;dr if you're new, a book might be the way to go. If not, I do
| not see why you would need a new book, just go here
| https://learnxinyminutes.com/
| dgloria wrote:
| I have read the whole Linux book, I knew I wouldn't understand
| half of it but just reading it is enough, when it comes to need
| to use some of the cli I know what is possible to do, and so I
| know what to google for. Once you read a book you won't forget
| what's in it, it'll come back when you need it.
| wan_ala wrote:
| If there isn't a free PDF of it online then yeah
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