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Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

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Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#231

Post by jamiecurle »

jonbodner wrote: post #143

I'm the author of O'Reilly's "Learning Go". Here are the last 13 months of paperback book sales: - Mar 2026: 124 - Feb 2026: 140 - Jan 2026: 157 - Dec 2025: 306 - Nov 2025: 484 - Oct 2025: 218 - Sep 2025: 176 - Aug 2025: 136 - Jul 2025: 317 - Jun 2025: 230 - May 2025: 237 - Apr 2025: 165 - Mar 2025: 367 Sales are certainly down, but it has gone up and down in the past. Since the 1st edition came out in 2021, it has s…

I cancelled my O'Reilly subscription because it's cheaper for me to buy the books from the publisher. I go through one book every few months. I thought I'd go through more with unlimited access but I didn't. $539.88 a year vs maybe $140-$200 I spend on books (I take advantage of discount codes when they come up).

I also like to go back to books. I cannot do that with the O'Reilly platform when a subscription ends.

I hear you and agree on the unlicensed training point - it is a form piracy.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#232

Post by thaumasiotes »

musicale wrote: post #67
aboardRat4 wrote: post #47

I printed a ton of books from libgen in the past 10 years. Using paper just works better for me. I do use LLMs for asking questions, and other learning tools.

I almost feel nostalgic for the bittorrent era, when piracy (or unauthorized distribution) was done the old-fashioned way! Though it's a shame that current copyright law is incompatible with building an effective digital library that isn't crippled with restrictions designed to impose the limitations of paper books (or worse) onto ebooks (while removing benefits such as first-sale doctrine.)

> I almost feel nostalgic for the bittorrent era, when piracy (or unauthorized distribution) was done the old-fashioned way!

Libgen is a huge improvement. During the period you're referring to, what was available was determined by popular demand, which meant that books weren't available at all.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#233

Post by rramadass »

quotemstr wrote: post #121

There are books about languages, and then there are books about timeless truths. The former? Toilet paper. The latter? Treasures. Worth reading: - Okasaki, Purely Functional Data Structures https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/students/okasaki.pdf - The Garbage Collection Handbook https://gchandbook.org/ - The Dragon Book - https://faculty.sist.shanghaitech.edu.cn/faculty/songfu/cav/... (yes, it's old, but I still like the en…

> A good programming book gets better with age. If it's really about ideas and uses this or that technology for exposition, so much the better: the more remote in time the grammar of the examples, the more you can focus on the ideas.

> It's shocking how many of these seminal books are available for free and how few people read them. ... an LLM won't give you the guided tour through the whole rugged ideas-space and show you a reasonable peak. Order, emphasis, and expository style build intuition, so books (especially old ones) are worth reading

Very, Very True! I have a huge personal library of my own and keep adding to it regularly.

IMO, most people nowadays don't want to put in the effort/time needed to learn something complex. Everything has to be spoon-fed and if they don't grok it the first time, then it is the fault of the author/subject/etc. I just don't see the sincerity and commitment to long-term study which is essential to understand any Science.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#234

Post by sjamaan »

cyberrock wrote: post #117
troad wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did anyone actually like StackOverflow? Any question asked would be edited beyond recognition (and usually into brash rudeness). Half the answers were demanding ever increasing proof of work, and the other half told the OP that they shouldn't even be trying to do what they're doing. The only useful thing were opinion based posts from people with domain expertise, and SO kept trying to ban and remove those. It was the…

For me the main problem of SO isn't even the moderation or human interaction. Even if a question is answered successfully, the entries have a short shelf life because modern APIs move and break so quickly. For example, I tried learning Ansible only through books and SO, and it was just frustrating. ansible_sudo_pass was deprecated for ansible_become_pass, but there are still many books and SO questions that still ref…

Java and C are older languages which have either solidified (C) or are very careful about breaking compat (Java). Most languages nowadays are indeed in the "move fast and break things" mode.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#235

Post by thaumasiotes »

quotemstr wrote: post #121

There are books about languages, and then there are books about timeless truths. The former? Toilet paper. The latter? Treasures. Worth reading: - Okasaki, Purely Functional Data Structures https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/students/okasaki.pdf - The Garbage Collection Handbook https://gchandbook.org/ - The Dragon Book - https://faculty.sist.shanghaitech.edu.cn/faculty/songfu/cav/... (yes, it's old, but I still like the en…

> It's shocking how many of these seminal books are available for free and how few people read them.

> The Dragon Book - https://faculty.sist.shanghaitech.edu.cn/faculty/songfu/cav/...

I mean, everything is available for free if that's your standard. You think Song Fu is authorized to give out copies of the dragon book?

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#237

Post by amelius »

troad wrote: post #38
eterm wrote: post #20

> Stack Overflow is receiving about 3,800 questions a month The crazy thing is that SO is dying so quickly that it's already under half that amount. https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/1926661#g...

Did anyone actually like StackOverflow? Any question asked would be edited beyond recognition (and usually into brash rudeness). Half the answers were demanding ever increasing proof of work, and the other half told the OP that they shouldn't even be trying to do what they're doing. The only useful thing were opinion based posts from people with domain expertise, and SO kept trying to ban and remove those. It was the…

I liked StackOverflow for the answers.

But asking questions was hell.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#238

Post by amelius »

harrouet wrote: post #212

I do buy programming books! I even sometimes read them without touching a computer. Studies show that books is the best media to learn. Forget video, books + practice (now with AI explanations) is my learning methodology.

But nowadays you can read books, and ask AI to help you read them.

I'm curious if someone built a proper interface for that usecase.

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#239

Post by chris_money202 »

jonbodner wrote: post #143

I'm the author of O'Reilly's "Learning Go". Here are the last 13 months of paperback book sales: - Mar 2026: 124 - Feb 2026: 140 - Jan 2026: 157 - Dec 2025: 306 - Nov 2025: 484 - Oct 2025: 218 - Sep 2025: 176 - Aug 2025: 136 - Jul 2025: 317 - Jun 2025: 230 - May 2025: 237 - Apr 2025: 165 - Mar 2025: 367 Sales are certainly down, but it has gone up and down in the past. Since the 1st edition came out in 2021, it has s…

Might also be because of Anna’s Archives

Re: Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

#240

Post by rldjbpin »

haven't done it physically in a long time, but surely virtually.

my 0.02 on the matter: things are stacked against you even if you are not strapped for time.

a vast majority of the stack is changing too fast and non-digital versions are not appropriate beyond learning the base of a language or high-level design patterns.

as publishing became super accessible, there is also a plethora of options, and increasingly difficult to sift between the lower-quality stuff and the diamonds.

for most people, very few (kinds of) programming books exist today that could stay relevant beyond the university.

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