I have switched to ebooks, given the rate as technical books get out of date, no need to keep killing trees for information that is outdated after one year.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.
Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”?
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Re: Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”?
#62Yes. 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 f…
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).
Re: Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”?
#63Yes. 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 f…
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.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”?
#64No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try a good eink device.
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.
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
Re: Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”?
#66the 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
Re: Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”?
#67I just this week bought "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" by Martin Kleppmann.
Same. Along with several others during the last 2 months.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”?
#68Majority 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.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”?
#69I 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.
Re: Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”?
#70No, 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.