tech books: Is CI/CD killing them?
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I was looking over my SafariBookshelf (tech bookshelf online) and I saw the Wrox book Visual Studio 2017 and I was thinking about how it is garbage now that 2019 is in preview 2 release. (Yes, I'm exaggerating a bit.) Do you still read technical books? Do you buy hardcopy at book store? I often notice that a lot of the books even at local Barnes and Noble are quite stale. The whole Win8, Win10 thing pretty much killed windows books. At one point Barnes and Noble had Win7, Win8 and Win10 books on the shelf. I think Angular is a big one that is to blame too. Every time I turn around Angular is a completely new release. Now .NET Core seems to be doing the same thing. It's fairly crazy that the constant updates & releases almost make things completely un-documentable (worse than ever). Foundational Concepts Some books are good because they are based more on foundational types of thoughts. Like the recent release by Martin Fowler which I am reading (which I both like and don't like at the same time). Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Fowler)): Martin Fowler: 9780134757599: Amazon.com: Books[^] This is Fowler's first release in quite some time. It is interesting but it is a slow read. I think it does point out some interesting "Refactoring Patterns" but I think it is odd that he chose JavaScript as the main language. JS seems wrong for some of the things that are related to true Interfaces. Have you read the book, by chance? It's good but only if you're in the mood for slow type of philosophical thinking about coding.
Personally I never buy hardcopy "How to X with Y" type books any more, mostly because they are out of date by the time you get them (echoing your sentiments with for example Angular) and also because they tend to cater to the lowest common denominator and don't actually teach you much outside of Y's documentation. Foundational stuff like "Continuous Delivery", "Release It!", "Patterns of Enterprise Architecture" and all that kind of thing age much better IMO. I still refer back to my copy of the *original* Fowler Refactoring book from time to time :)
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Personally I never buy hardcopy "How to X with Y" type books any more, mostly because they are out of date by the time you get them (echoing your sentiments with for example Angular) and also because they tend to cater to the lowest common denominator and don't actually teach you much outside of Y's documentation. Foundational stuff like "Continuous Delivery", "Release It!", "Patterns of Enterprise Architecture" and all that kind of thing age much better IMO. I still refer back to my copy of the *original* Fowler Refactoring book from time to time :)
Member 10346655 wrote:
because they are out of date by the time you get them
Agree!
Member 10346655 wrote:
also because they tend to cater to the lowest common denominator and don't actually teach you much outside of Y's documentation
This is a very big problem. Many books just cover the intro parts of a technology and really don't take you very far at all.
Member 10346655 wrote:
I still refer back to my copy of the *original* Fowler Refactoring book from time to time
Very cool! :thumbsup:
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I was looking over my SafariBookshelf (tech bookshelf online) and I saw the Wrox book Visual Studio 2017 and I was thinking about how it is garbage now that 2019 is in preview 2 release. (Yes, I'm exaggerating a bit.) Do you still read technical books? Do you buy hardcopy at book store? I often notice that a lot of the books even at local Barnes and Noble are quite stale. The whole Win8, Win10 thing pretty much killed windows books. At one point Barnes and Noble had Win7, Win8 and Win10 books on the shelf. I think Angular is a big one that is to blame too. Every time I turn around Angular is a completely new release. Now .NET Core seems to be doing the same thing. It's fairly crazy that the constant updates & releases almost make things completely un-documentable (worse than ever). Foundational Concepts Some books are good because they are based more on foundational types of thoughts. Like the recent release by Martin Fowler which I am reading (which I both like and don't like at the same time). Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Fowler)): Martin Fowler: 9780134757599: Amazon.com: Books[^] This is Fowler's first release in quite some time. It is interesting but it is a slow read. I think it does point out some interesting "Refactoring Patterns" but I think it is odd that he chose JavaScript as the main language. JS seems wrong for some of the things that are related to true Interfaces. Have you read the book, by chance? It's good but only if you're in the mood for slow type of philosophical thinking about coding.
I buy some tech books, but only in digital format. When learning new technology I'll have the book open on a tablet while I work. This is not as convenient as a hardcopy book, it's easy to read but hard to pick through. OTOH, I've always got a 100+ books in my pocket. Most of my career was spent as a consultant. When I needed a book, I convinced the client to buy it. When I moved on to a new assignment, the book remained the client's property. Which was fine -- I got the book I needed, I didn't have to pay for it, and when I moved to a new assignment the book was either outdated or I was now working in a different technology. On a few occasions I convinced the new client to get the book I had left behind. This strategy was a win for both sides. Now days when I need to learn a new technology (which is often) I go to SyncFusion and look at their Succinctly books. They are free -- quick primers to get started in a new technology. Once I have the basics of a technology, I rarely crack books. Online searches work much better for solving problems, but not for learning. My employer pays for PluralSight, so I use videos sometimes. That's good for an overview, but for hard learning I need to play with the tinkertoys ...
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I was looking over my SafariBookshelf (tech bookshelf online) and I saw the Wrox book Visual Studio 2017 and I was thinking about how it is garbage now that 2019 is in preview 2 release. (Yes, I'm exaggerating a bit.) Do you still read technical books? Do you buy hardcopy at book store? I often notice that a lot of the books even at local Barnes and Noble are quite stale. The whole Win8, Win10 thing pretty much killed windows books. At one point Barnes and Noble had Win7, Win8 and Win10 books on the shelf. I think Angular is a big one that is to blame too. Every time I turn around Angular is a completely new release. Now .NET Core seems to be doing the same thing. It's fairly crazy that the constant updates & releases almost make things completely un-documentable (worse than ever). Foundational Concepts Some books are good because they are based more on foundational types of thoughts. Like the recent release by Martin Fowler which I am reading (which I both like and don't like at the same time). Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Fowler)): Martin Fowler: 9780134757599: Amazon.com: Books[^] This is Fowler's first release in quite some time. It is interesting but it is a slow read. I think it does point out some interesting "Refactoring Patterns" but I think it is odd that he chose JavaScript as the main language. JS seems wrong for some of the things that are related to true Interfaces. Have you read the book, by chance? It's good but only if you're in the mood for slow type of philosophical thinking about coding.
raddevus wrote:
I think Angular is a big one that is to blame too. Every time I turn around Angular is a completely new release. Now .NET Core seems to be doing the same thing.
I blame marketing in general. Documentation has gone by the wayside in favor of getting out new, flashy releases to make a splash.
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I buy some tech books, but only in digital format. When learning new technology I'll have the book open on a tablet while I work. This is not as convenient as a hardcopy book, it's easy to read but hard to pick through. OTOH, I've always got a 100+ books in my pocket. Most of my career was spent as a consultant. When I needed a book, I convinced the client to buy it. When I moved on to a new assignment, the book remained the client's property. Which was fine -- I got the book I needed, I didn't have to pay for it, and when I moved to a new assignment the book was either outdated or I was now working in a different technology. On a few occasions I convinced the new client to get the book I had left behind. This strategy was a win for both sides. Now days when I need to learn a new technology (which is often) I go to SyncFusion and look at their Succinctly books. They are free -- quick primers to get started in a new technology. Once I have the basics of a technology, I rarely crack books. Online searches work much better for solving problems, but not for learning. My employer pays for PluralSight, so I use videos sometimes. That's good for an overview, but for hard learning I need to play with the tinkertoys ...
Great post and a lot of interesting details of your experience with books.
BryanFazekas wrote:
When I needed a book, I convinced the client to buy it
That's interesting and amazing to me...that the client would buy them and that they wouldn't necessarily be concerned that you didn't "already know everything". I'm sure this is due to your relationship with the clients. Way back around 1999 or so a company I worked for bought us a subscription for the Safari Bookshelf. It mostly contained the O'Reilly books which was really great anyways. I've been a member since then because every book you can imagine is basically available on there. I am on an old 10 book thing were a book has to stay on the shelf for 30 days but you can cycle them on regularly. It's only $19.95/month and you can read just about any book you will find. There's something like 16,000 books on there and they're fast at adding them.
BryanFazekas wrote:
PluralSight, so I use videos sometimes. That's good for an overview,
I feel that same way there. Videos are sometimes more annoying than books because you can't easily find the section of the stuff that you want to learn. I always play pluralsight videos at 1.7x their normal speed.
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raddevus wrote:
I think Angular is a big one that is to blame too. Every time I turn around Angular is a completely new release. Now .NET Core seems to be doing the same thing.
I blame marketing in general. Documentation has gone by the wayside in favor of getting out new, flashy releases to make a splash.
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Great post and a lot of interesting details of your experience with books.
BryanFazekas wrote:
When I needed a book, I convinced the client to buy it
That's interesting and amazing to me...that the client would buy them and that they wouldn't necessarily be concerned that you didn't "already know everything". I'm sure this is due to your relationship with the clients. Way back around 1999 or so a company I worked for bought us a subscription for the Safari Bookshelf. It mostly contained the O'Reilly books which was really great anyways. I've been a member since then because every book you can imagine is basically available on there. I am on an old 10 book thing were a book has to stay on the shelf for 30 days but you can cycle them on regularly. It's only $19.95/month and you can read just about any book you will find. There's something like 16,000 books on there and they're fast at adding them.
BryanFazekas wrote:
PluralSight, so I use videos sometimes. That's good for an overview,
I feel that same way there. Videos are sometimes more annoying than books because you can't easily find the section of the stuff that you want to learn. I always play pluralsight videos at 1.7x their normal speed.
raddevus wrote:
reat post and a lot of interesting details of your experience with books.
Glad you liked it! Some clients were a hard sell on buying books, but when I told them that I had no intention of keeping the books, it helped. This way they had a library of books for the technologies they used. Safari Bookshelf looks interesting, but I don't read enough books to justify the price. It might be a good idea for an employer, depending on situation. Funny story -- some years back I worked with a guy who constantly bought books and never discarded any. When he moved offices (he was FTE) his books took 40+ copier paper boxes to move. It took him a couple of days to pack his books, move them, and unpack/arrange. His new office was 30' down the hallway ... I asked him why he didn't get rid of books on ancient technology (well, ancient in IT terms) that he hadn't touched in over 10 years and never would again. His response? "Do you have any idea what I paid for those books??!!!"
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raddevus wrote:
reat post and a lot of interesting details of your experience with books.
Glad you liked it! Some clients were a hard sell on buying books, but when I told them that I had no intention of keeping the books, it helped. This way they had a library of books for the technologies they used. Safari Bookshelf looks interesting, but I don't read enough books to justify the price. It might be a good idea for an employer, depending on situation. Funny story -- some years back I worked with a guy who constantly bought books and never discarded any. When he moved offices (he was FTE) his books took 40+ copier paper boxes to move. It took him a couple of days to pack his books, move them, and unpack/arrange. His new office was 30' down the hallway ... I asked him why he didn't get rid of books on ancient technology (well, ancient in IT terms) that he hadn't touched in over 10 years and never would again. His response? "Do you have any idea what I paid for those books??!!!"
BryanFazekas wrote:
his books took 40+ copier paper boxes to move.
:wtf: Wow! I used old books for target practice with a .44 magnum. It's quite instructive. We got to see bullet paths through the thick books -- perfect bore through the front (looked like a drill did it) for a couple of inches then rips the back out with a huge hole after the bullet becomes deformed. Very cool science. Since I had a lot of tech books stacked in front of each other we were able to "capture" the bullets and see how deformed they become.
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BryanFazekas wrote:
his books took 40+ copier paper boxes to move.
:wtf: Wow! I used old books for target practice with a .44 magnum. It's quite instructive. We got to see bullet paths through the thick books -- perfect bore through the front (looked like a drill did it) for a couple of inches then rips the back out with a huge hole after the bullet becomes deformed. Very cool science. Since I had a lot of tech books stacked in front of each other we were able to "capture" the bullets and see how deformed they become.
Sounds like fun!
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I was looking over my SafariBookshelf (tech bookshelf online) and I saw the Wrox book Visual Studio 2017 and I was thinking about how it is garbage now that 2019 is in preview 2 release. (Yes, I'm exaggerating a bit.) Do you still read technical books? Do you buy hardcopy at book store? I often notice that a lot of the books even at local Barnes and Noble are quite stale. The whole Win8, Win10 thing pretty much killed windows books. At one point Barnes and Noble had Win7, Win8 and Win10 books on the shelf. I think Angular is a big one that is to blame too. Every time I turn around Angular is a completely new release. Now .NET Core seems to be doing the same thing. It's fairly crazy that the constant updates & releases almost make things completely un-documentable (worse than ever). Foundational Concepts Some books are good because they are based more on foundational types of thoughts. Like the recent release by Martin Fowler which I am reading (which I both like and don't like at the same time). Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Fowler)): Martin Fowler: 9780134757599: Amazon.com: Books[^] This is Fowler's first release in quite some time. It is interesting but it is a slow read. I think it does point out some interesting "Refactoring Patterns" but I think it is odd that he chose JavaScript as the main language. JS seems wrong for some of the things that are related to true Interfaces. Have you read the book, by chance? It's good but only if you're in the mood for slow type of philosophical thinking about coding.
Books need more "intelligence". More / different ways are needed for presenting "learning" content. E-books only try to mimic real books and not much else.
"(I) am amazed to see myself here rather than there ... now rather than then". ― Blaise Pascal
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Books need more "intelligence". More / different ways are needed for presenting "learning" content. E-books only try to mimic real books and not much else.
"(I) am amazed to see myself here rather than there ... now rather than then". ― Blaise Pascal
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I was looking over my SafariBookshelf (tech bookshelf online) and I saw the Wrox book Visual Studio 2017 and I was thinking about how it is garbage now that 2019 is in preview 2 release. (Yes, I'm exaggerating a bit.) Do you still read technical books? Do you buy hardcopy at book store? I often notice that a lot of the books even at local Barnes and Noble are quite stale. The whole Win8, Win10 thing pretty much killed windows books. At one point Barnes and Noble had Win7, Win8 and Win10 books on the shelf. I think Angular is a big one that is to blame too. Every time I turn around Angular is a completely new release. Now .NET Core seems to be doing the same thing. It's fairly crazy that the constant updates & releases almost make things completely un-documentable (worse than ever). Foundational Concepts Some books are good because they are based more on foundational types of thoughts. Like the recent release by Martin Fowler which I am reading (which I both like and don't like at the same time). Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (2nd Edition) (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Fowler)): Martin Fowler: 9780134757599: Amazon.com: Books[^] This is Fowler's first release in quite some time. It is interesting but it is a slow read. I think it does point out some interesting "Refactoring Patterns" but I think it is odd that he chose JavaScript as the main language. JS seems wrong for some of the things that are related to true Interfaces. Have you read the book, by chance? It's good but only if you're in the mood for slow type of philosophical thinking about coding.
Here;s my thoughts, as a tech author. I'm currently working on a hard copy, print published book for Packt, so there are obviously books still being sold in enough volume that the publishers are still confident getting authors on board to write content. However, MOST of the content I actually get paid to write comes in one of two forms. 1) Very short, quick learning books, typically only released as eBooks, that I get paid a one off for and the company hiring me get to keep all copyrights. These books typically are used for pure marketing purposes, and are often given away free. The daily build news letter from CP, often has a few linked in it. The purpose of these books is simple. For the reader, they are quick to consume, quick to learn from, and in the case of some publishers (That don't cater to developers, but to CEO's, CTO's etc) they are designed to get non techs to a level where they at least sort of understand what the techs are on about. 2) Paid blogging. Pure and simple. Most of the sites I blog for are media outlets, they make thier money from advertising, but people won't come to view the adverts unles there is suitable content for them to visit the site. An awfull lot of these sites, are happy to go for the lowest common denomitator they can, and often pick up citizen developers at half the price folks like me charge, who then write content that's only just enough plausible to look as though it's true fact. For the "in print" books, I typically don't get paid, well not in the "truest sense", that is I don't get X amount per hour for writing Y, typically the publisher will make a guess at how many thier going to sell, and give me a slice of those royaties up front. What then happens is I get none of the royalties from the sales until that amount exceeds what I was given upfront. So, if I get say £5000 (Yes I'm in the UK... deal with it :-D), but the book never makes any more than £2000 it sales, then I come out on top. If I get £5000, and the book makes £10000, the I'll see another £5000. Note that I picked those figures out the air, it's not typically a fixed portion of successive royalties, it's typically a single fixed pre payment, then a given percentage after that. So I might make £5000 up front, but on £10k worth of sales the % might be lower and I might make only £2k, things are often stacked in favour of the publishing house for in print books. So what's my actual point. Quite simple. Many tech authors don't do in print titles any more simply beacus
