Ask HN: How do you choose technical books? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you choose technical books?

14 pointsPHP_Developer8 comments

My boss just called me into his office to let me know that, due to financial reasons, they were going to have to lay me off. He was very apologetic, saying that he was very happy with my work, and offered to provide a reference for me.

Since I'll obviously be able to collect unemployment benefits, and since I've managed to save a fair chunk of my wages during my time here, I'm not really concerned about my finances yet.

To that end, I've decided to invest in a subscription to Safari Books to try to add some new skills and improve my existing ones, to help fill the time while I'm job searching.

My problem is I'm not really sure how to choose technical books. It used to be that you could just grab any O'Reilly book and run with it, but I've heard that that's not really the case anymore. Amazon reviews don't seem overly reliable either, due to a lot of "noobs" tainting the results (not to mention people who review a book poorly because it didn't ship fast enough, or for other invalid reasons).

I'd rather not list specific topics I'm looking into, since my goal is to build a heuristic I can use to pick books in any topic. If you have any tips on picking books, publishers (or series, authors, etc.) to avoid, or anything else, please share below.

Thank you all in advance for any guidance you can provide.

Browse the table of contents. You can often do this on Amazon, or the book's publisher's website. Does the book appear to start at a level that you can understand, and does it cover the material that you wish to learn? (It the starting level is a little low or a little high for you, that may be okay, but watch out for a table of contents that suggests the book is way beneath you or way above you.)

Amazon reviews can still be helpful, but you have to look for more in-depth reviews. A review that just says "This book is awesome", while possibly true, is insufficient. If the review goes in-depth about the contents of the book, or how exactly it helped the reviewer, then that should be a good indicator. (And likewise, when you find books you like or don't like, contribute to Amazon reviews by writing reviews that you think could help others.)

I like books from the MIT Press, though their catalog is very different from O'Reilly's, covering more conceptual topics than specific technologies. They seem, though, to really put a lot of care into generating beautiful books. I've been generally happy with the O'Reilly books I've bought, though I don't have a lot of them. My even more limited exposure to the Pragmatic Programmer catalog has also been positive, though I do not care for their typesetting style. Addison-Wesley books have often appealed to me.

Edit: To highlight an important part: It may be quicker to get references elsewhere and then check whether they are on Safari, than to try to find the best choices directly through the Safari interface.

E.g. For one, off the top of my head, the reading list cited/linked by tptacek on his HN profile:

http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek

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At certain times, you can get the first year of unlimited-level Safari for $30/month instead of $43/month. I've only seen this for a month period around January or February, but some Googling might turn up an alternate means to get this deal.

Safari has a subset of publisher Addison Wesley's books. Many of these are quite good. E.g. some on networking, some on "Effective X" (Ruby, Perl, etc.)

More recent O'Reilly texts I have found to be hit and miss. Go back 5 or 10 years, and the overall level of quality seems to me to have been significantly higher.

Safari also has some (but by no means all) books published by Manning, No Starch, MS Publishing (e.g. Code Complete (2), IIRC), etc. It may be quicker to get references elsewhere and then check whether they are on Safari, than to try to find the best choices directly through the Safari interface.

Safari will carry multiple editions. Make sure you're looking at the latest.

After a couple of years of Safari, I personally feel I would have been better off just purchasing eBooks (e.g. O'Reilly eBooks are DRM free and often available at discount through promotions) that I would continue to have access to indefinitely and without a network connection.

If you are in learning mode, read several books on the same subject/language/whatever. Skim the similar points and look for the differences. Test. Don't just assume a singular point of reference is going to help you learn. More importantly, like with any information, take everything with a grain of salt, INCLUDING everything you find online, google results, searches, and answers here.

excellent advice +1

Amazon reviews from people you know are better than you (many HN regulars, Peter Norvig etc) has worked for me.

For any given topic there are usually a few 'classics' amongst umpteen flim flam frothy books. At least for technical topics, you can just ask on HN (or email any HNer say tptacek for security related books, patio11 for SEO etc) and get some good recommendations.

I've actually had good luck with searching for specific technical books through GoodReads. I've found reviews there to be in-depth and fairly accurate.

Jolt award winners, and Martin Fowler's signature series

I start, like tjr, with the ToC. Then I check the index (if it's in my hands). Then skim a few chapters - see if the content under interesting chapter headings is written well and\or usable by me. Lastly, what is the price? Regardless of cost, if it's not one I'll read over and over \ refer-to constantly, I'll go to the library and check it out for a couple weeks, picking-up what I want/need from it

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