Of course, what else can I put on my book shelves to impress my managers? They love books from Martin Fowler, Bob Martin, etc.. Basically, anything useless but good sound bite.
Ask HN: Programmers – do you still buy/read technical books?
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Re: Ask HN: Programmers – do you still buy/read technical books?
#22I'd say that the technical books are a bit of a stretch, as most things in tech and entropy of their usefulness like apps over time, break.
I might suggest something more above the free of technology and more in the design of software. Ideas that last are the ones around approaches to design vs. actually technology that they are implemented with.
My co-worker (a younger version of me, actually and way smarter is wise beyond his years) gave me this book - which is as old as my career and has relevance on how we design software at my day job.
https://www.amazon.com/Domain-Driven-Design-Tackling-Complex...
Re: Ask HN: Programmers – do you still buy/read technical books?
#23I've adopted the same philosophy with technical books as with other types of books: I'll buy and keep the "classics" around, but anything that is more fleeting I'll borrow from the library, conduct a web search for the info, or buy digitally.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers – do you still buy/read technical books?
#24At the beginning of diving into a topic area or when I want to go very deep on a subject.
Books tend to have good comprehensive overviews of an area/technology, whereas most online tutorials are very shallow, even if more current.
On the flip side, when I need /deep/ understanding it’s almost always a combination of a book on the topic to fill in holes I missed, the docs, and live repos if available.
If it’s just for day to day use, or a technology I’m only using in passing - no.
I do vet the authors though. A lot of trash is published.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers – do you still buy/read technical books?
#25Yes, I subscribe to O’Reilly.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers – do you still buy/read technical books?
#26I buy them, but don’t read them.
I do this with fiction books, too.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers – do you still buy/read technical books?
#27Somewhat… I find it hard to sit down and read technical especially if it’s dense… I used to buy them for reference as needed but Google has made it almost obsolete now. Technology is also changing so fast now - most technical books I bought a few years ago are mostly obsolete now - so I end up googling anyhow.
Here an idea that would make technical books relevant again in the age of blogs and Google: I think technical books needs to be live content (I don’t mean course like) - you buy a book and get an online subscription to it (almost like an ebook) but live in a sense that you get access to subsequent editions and updates examples etc.
Re: Ask HN: Programmers – do you still buy/read technical books?
#28Yes, I subscribe to O’Reilly. https://www.oreilly.com
That's where I do the majority of my reading (for technical books) these days. It's great, especially for the "I want to learn $LANG/$FRAMEWORK but I know the particular book will be outdated in 2 years or irrelevant to my future work." Unless I really like the language, I probably won't be buying the book (of course, if my employer will then I'll take a hard copy).
Re: Ask HN: Programmers – do you still buy/read technical books?
#29Yes, but I started reading recently. I got introduced to Eli Bendersky’s blog[0] and when I went through his reading summary & book reviews; I got motivated enough to start reading!
Re: Ask HN: Programmers – do you still buy/read technical books?
#30Sure. How else could you acquire fundamental, consistent knowledge about a topic? By random, volatile blog posts?
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