well.. actually books are very, very good. (i could have learned so much more if i had spent tuiton on books, cause school didnt teach me anything) wait.. wrong rant. books are soo freakin expensive.. i seem to spend a couple hundred bucks a month on books. not really anything that can be done about it but it still sucks. i hurt myself today, to see if i still feel..

Actually, books do suck very much in that they harvest all of our trees, which essentially are like macroscopic lungs of the planet.
I work at a library on the internet that also has the hard copies, and it''s INSANE how much paper is used for THE MOST USELESS, and I stress that, the most superfluous documentation of the most obscure/irrelevant swill. I read and study all of my programming skills via free libraries like www.informit.com which teaches me everything I need to know, plus it has a guide online to the book so you can jump around easy, and learn what you want from each book.

quit buying books, tree nazis

SPAR1

Well... my hometown is making treeless paper... well not making but is in a proposal stage for farmers to grow some strange plant from Africa I believe.

Nick, better tell yout hometown to do some thorough reasearch first. You might end up with a weed really quickly.
As for treeless paper, I''m still anticipating an e-ink book to come out so we can have real electronic books [not these cruddy clam-sheel things that eat juice constantly.]

yummm... paper :p

I agree that books are WAY too expensive. Why do I have to pay in excess of $10 for a 100-page PAPERback book??? I agree that to an extent, many books ARE a waste of paper, but for technical (or whatever) manuals, I really prefer it. I''m sure it won''t be too long before someone makes some sort of synthetic paper though. That''ll solve all the problems

If you code it, they will come...

Commander M
http://commanderm.8m.com
cmndrm@commanderm.8m.com

By the way, does anyone know of a free online library that has books (or links to them) on just general topics (not necessarily relating to anything in the programming genre)?

If you code it, they will come...

Commander M
http://commanderm.8m.com
cmndrm@commanderm.8m.com

For reference material, I like online books the best. Well, depending on the book engine. Some are horrable, some are excelent.

For story books, I love paper books.

Being that reference book take up much more paper then reading books, they really need to move all those over to a digital form.

Even though I have the "Yellow Pages" at home, I still use the online phonebook since it''s faster looking someone up. Plus, the online version is nation wide, not just regional.

E:cb woof!

I learned how to do basic programming from library books. I got most of my early programming knowledge from magazines, like Game Developer.

Domini

Hmm... my experience with ''online books'' or reference is mixed... while there is alot out there, most sites do not explain things, and to start with you''re left thinking just *why* whatever example worked... there just isn''t enough explanation of the facts... I have little experience with books, mainly because (as has been mentioned) they cost a bomb . The one book I have browsed over was ok, but it could have been a bit fuller (it was a ''... for dummies'' book... bah)

Nick - Head Designer, Llamasoft.net

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