Nobody cracks open a programming book anymore

Post by skissane » Tue, May 26, 2026, 11:17 PM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #328

skissane wrote: post #299

My dad asked what to get our 13 year old as a birthday present. So I asked him, and he said Jon Duckett’s JavaScript and JQuery book - which he realises is a bit dated by now (2014), but he wanted it anyway (in part because he already has the other two books in the series), so that’s what he’s got. And sometimes a “dated” book is still valuable. One night recently I was having trouble getting him to go to sleep becau…

For a 13 years old? Wow that’s so amazing. How did you get him interested in Linux and OS stuffs in general? Btw you can probably get him access to the actual systems — there are people offering accounts for those operating systems. I probably have another OS book that covers slightly different ones — instead of IBM mainframe OS it covers CP/M.

Post by snvzz » Wed, May 27, 2026, 12:05 AM UTC

ptek wrote: post #148

sriram_malhar wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. I wrote the Panther book, Advanced Perl Programming, and easily made way more than 100k. Of the 25-30 or so dollars the books cost, I got 10% per copy, or $2 after taxes. The first print run of 35000 sold within the first three weeks. The Camel book was already a huge bestseller, and was one of the anchor books of the early OReilly series. It made Larry a pretty penny

If only Amiga assembler books hit those type of numbers.

Post by insane_dreamer » Wed, May 27, 2026, 1:56 AM UTC

olmo23 wrote: post #268

sevenzero wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>which have indexed all of the books and used pirated copies to do so Funnily enough, people on HN often do not consider this an issue, like at all... I wonder how they'd think about it if they had created something (meaningful) that was subjected to this. I love Go and learned it a lot in the past 2 years but ultimately put it down in favor of more "batteries included" solutions as I don't trust myself enough as a d…

> Funnily enough, people on HN often do not consider this an issue, like at all... I didn't have a problem with it when it was Aaron Swartz, not sure why I should have a problem with it when others do it.

Post by markus_zhang » Wed, May 27, 2026, 3:12 AM UTC

skissane wrote: post #331

markus_zhang wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a 13 years old? Wow that’s so amazing. How did you get him interested in Linux and OS stuffs in general? Btw you can probably get him access to the actual systems — there are people offering accounts for those operating systems. I probably have another OS book that covers slightly different ones — instead of IBM mainframe OS it covers CP/M.

> How did you get him interested in Linux and OS stuffs in general? I’m sure I made some contribution, but a lot of it is just him-e.g. he’s an Arch Linux zealot, I never touched Arch until he started demanding I fix things he’d broken in it. I think he was converted to Arch by Youtube > Btw you can probably get him access to the actual systems — there are people offering accounts for those operating systems. I’ve ru…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, May 27, 2026, 3:33 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #232

musicale wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.