If you only have $2,000, you'll get a better bang for your buck with books and online courses than traveling to a conference--especially in an expensive city (which is where tech conferences tend to be). I went to KDD[1] last year, and racked up a bit over $3500 in expenses without even trying.
Ask HN: I have $2k for books, training and confs. What should I spend it on?
41–50 of 55 posts
Re: Ask HN: I have $2k for books, training and confs. What should I spend it on?
#42I know how I'd spend the first $100: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/introduction-algorithms I don't know about the other $1.9K.
Don't forget that you can stretch $2k a lot further on something like half.com instead of buying new books: http://product.half.ebay.com/Introduction-to-Algorithms-by-C...
If you do wish to purchase new books, get them from overseas. The "let's make an expensive US version and then a cheaper but identical international version, the latter being illegal to sell in the US" practice is horrible, and it is your moral obligation to circumvent it as best you can.
Re: Ask HN: I have $2k for books, training and confs. What should I spend it on?
#43For your current work, I would say put your objectives, discuss it with your employer to see which ones fits better and then have a side project and learn how to do it in a new technology that you don't know. Examples will be AngularJS, EmberJS .. etc.
Re: Ask HN: I have $2k for books, training and confs. What should I spend it on?
#44I've started taking a couple of Coursera specialization tracts: Data Science - Johns Hopkins https://www.coursera.org/specialization/jhudatascience/1 Data Mining - UIUC (edit: was Johns Hopkins - bad copy/paste) https://www.coursera.org/specialization/datamining/20 There are more specializations that you can get here: https://www.coursera.org/specializations It's kind of a layer on top of the free courses. I've been…
Will they actually? Are employers starting to value Coursera courses as valuable educational experience?
Re: Ask HN: I have $2k for books, training and confs. What should I spend it on?
#45If you want to work for Microsoft or Google, while you likely can't get away with using your employers's $2K, the best books to read are Cracking the Coding Interview and Elements of Programming Interviews. Both books have very solid algorithm questions which you can use to go research the various algorithms and learn them. Although, I'd wait for Elements of Programming Interviews v2 which will include Java samples, as opposed to C++, but that's just me.
McDowell's The Google Resume also has some useful tidbits in it.
Re: Ask HN: I have $2k for books, training and confs. What should I spend it on?
#46I would buy and look into the following books:
# HTTP: The Definitive Guide - O'Reilly Media
# Algorithms by Sedgewick
# Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen.
Check out some Machine Learning books:
# Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning
# Computer Networks (5th Edition)
I would look at the following book if you wanted more Q&A and interview questions:
# Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions ...
Tutorial memberships:
# I would buy a Tuts+ account, they have been very slow in releasing new content (too bad), however they have lots of great Web Development stuff.
I would read some other non-technical books:
# Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age by Paul Graham
# The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
# The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change The Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christenen,
# Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
# How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
If you wanted to understand some Cloud stuff, look into the Whitepapers from Amazon Web Services:
Re: Ask HN: I have $2k for books, training and confs. What should I spend it on?
#47I would buy and look into the following books: # HTTP: The Definitive Guide - O'Reilly Media # Algorithms by Sedgewick # Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen. Check out some Machine Learning books: # Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning # Computer Networks (5th Edition) I would look at the following book if you wanted more Q&A and interview questions: # Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions ...…
> # The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz
this is an excellent book! also i would have to recommend How Google Works. its fairly new.
Re: Ask HN: I have $2k for books, training and confs. What should I spend it on?
#48I've started taking a couple of Coursera specialization tracts: Data Science - Johns Hopkins https://www.coursera.org/specialization/jhudatascience/1 Data Mining - UIUC (edit: was Johns Hopkins - bad copy/paste) https://www.coursera.org/specialization/datamining/20 There are more specializations that you can get here: https://www.coursera.org/specializations It's kind of a layer on top of the free courses. I've been…
Will they actually? Are employers starting to value Coursera courses as valuable educational experience?
Not sure about the individual courses, but I've seen the certified tracts mentioned in job descriptions, most recently in some data science positions.
Re: Ask HN: I have $2k for books, training and confs. What should I spend it on?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
A good way to get Safari Books Online is to join the ACM organization. You get a subset of Safari and other bookstores for around $100 a year. There maybe others with the same deal.
Yes but the subset from Safari Books Online is quite restrictive. I ended up having to get Safari separately to access some of the books I wanted...
Sure but the full version starts at $399 per year. If you only occasionally read the books that the $100 might be a better deal supplemented by buying specific books you really want.
Re: Ask HN: I have $2k for books, training and confs. What should I spend it on?
#50http://safaribooksonline.com It's basically Netflix for programming books.