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No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

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Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#111

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Mistletoe wrote: post #103
roadside_picnic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an avid reader (and sometimes writer) of technical books, it's sad to see the, perhaps inevitable, decline of the space. I still remember in the early 2000s Barnes and Noble would still have massive shelf space devoted to every technical topic you could imagine. I could spend hours just exploring what languages and topics there were I didn't even know existed. Powell's Technical Books used to be an entire separate…

This makes sense, "enough" of the old technical info is in the AI brains now and easily accessed via a query.

A lossy compressed version of it, at least.

But a lot of is also in blogs and (video) tutorials. As well as Stack Overflow.

And all very searchable.

The old brick-of-paper approach to tech manuals just isn't a thing any more. I don't particularly miss it.

It was, if you think about, usually a slow and inefficient way to present information - often better at presenting what was possible than how to do make it happen.

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#112

Post by michaelt »

falcor84 wrote: post #110
michaelt wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you own a factory that makes plastic widgets. The factory has a widget-making machine. You'll pay rent on the factory and interest on the loan you took out to buy the widget-making machine whether you make one widget or a million. But the amount you'll spend on plastic and machine operator wages goes up the more widgets you want to make. So you can plot a line, y=mx+c where y is the amount you spend and x is…

Did you just write a short lesson to explain the difference between capex and opex? Well... thank you, I guess. But again, the question is: is it ever rational for a functional unit manager to be given a particular maximum opex budget and not be allowed to capitalize a part of that? What benefit would such a restriction offer to the business?

> What benefit would such a restriction offer to the business?

You approve opex budget for the widget department because you know they can turn 10 cents of plastic into $1 of widgets, and you want them doing that in the forthcoming quarter. You're happy for them to spend a nigh-unlimited amount on inputs like plastic, so long as it's on things with a 90% margin.

But you don't want the department head spending their nigh-unlimited budget on things that don't get sold on with a 90% margin. So you don't let them charge the O'Reilly books to the nigh-unlimited part of their budget.

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#113

Post by mparnisari »

graypegg wrote: post #38

Every library I've had a library card for (Toronto Public Library 7ish years ago, and BANQ Montréal) have had O'reilly subscriptions for free! A few other people have mentioned it in this thread with specific cities, but check your local one! It seems really common.

Vancouver Public Library as well :) https://www.vpl.ca/digital-library/oreilly-technology-and-bu...

Though I wish I could check them out on my Kobo...

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#115

Post by diab0lic »

fluorinerocket wrote: post #84
cultofmetatron wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love pragprog but I think nonfiction books in dead tree form is going away. YEs, I know there are people who will pay for a physical book, just not enough to make for a profitable business. I myself spend around 200-300 usd on books every year. but I haven't bought a physical book in almost a decade. a pdf is perfectly fine. just sell it to me without DRM and have content thats worth the premium over wading through…

I on the other hand can't stand PDFs. They take up valuable screen space, it is annoying to scroll to the sections you need. Yeah yeah some PDFs have the side navigation thing. Most don't With a book I can put in those little flags to bookmark sections, I can easily riffle the pages and scan for the chapter I need, I can hand write in the margins I often need 2 or 3 books open to different sections, I like keeping th…

I’m similar to you. I recently went as far as to buy a pdf for an out of print book and then paid to have it printed and bound.

I suppose a remarkable would be another route but… they are pricey.

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#116

Post by dehrmann »

whenc wrote: post #15
cauliflower99 wrote: post #13

Anytime I'm asked for feedback via the O'Reilly website (I manage the business account for my company), the first thing I always say is that the app is unusable. I've tried it on my Amazon Fire Tablet, Ipad, different phones - it doesn't work. The user metrics in O'reilly (and probably most learning apps) has floored in the last 12 months. I see they've launched a new AI platform now. They're definitely going in a di…

It went un-noticed here, I think, but The Pragmatic Bookshelf recently fired most of its staff and are taking on no new books. In the email they sent to authors, they quoted a 40% YoY fall in non-fiction sales, industry-wide.

Sibling comments are mostly saying they either started hoarding books or switched to some combination of blog posts, Stackoverflow, and LLMs. For those with books, how are you using them?

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#118

Post by JackAcid »

mindcrash wrote: post #21

For me one of the best ways until now to get good quality IT books is (believe it or not): Humble Bundle ( https://www.humblebundle.com/ ) The past year they featured bundles from (quickly out of my head): O'Reilly, MIT Press, Manning, Pearson, Pragmatic Programmers and No Starch Press. Oh, and Packt. But I left that one out because the quality of most Packt books is total shit (IMO). It's the next best thing besides…

Packt books are pure shit.

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#119

Post by leoc »

layer8 wrote: post #34
reader9274 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ACM is pleased to share an important milestone for the computing field. Beginning January 2026, all ACM publications and related artifacts in the ACM Digital Library will be made open access.

Doesn’t help for O'Reilly content.

(Also, if you can afford the subscription money it makes sense to reward, not punish, ACM for making its own material open-access.)

Re: No more O'Reilly subscriptions for me

#120

Post by poorblish »

I work for a publishing company that sells elearning access to the proprietary “framework”. Anyways our company is now going full bore on AI related content. Everyone is just milling about having meetings about our AI product line but the company is sinking.

We don’t focus any effort on our core services and product, just chase the next fad.

If other publishing companies are anything like the one I work for then they’re clawing at the wall looking for the next big thing. Since AI is a big question mark, they are publishing absolute drivel.

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