[thelist] Re: Throwing books

Tim Luoma luomat at peak.org
Mon Jul 8 14:38:01 CDT 2002


Erika Meyer wrote:

>> My first thought is, throw the web at them. You're much more likely
>> to find
>> up-to-date info.
>
>
> Absolutely, the web.  If they need a reference, they can print the
> good stuff.
> Books about how to build web sites are a waste of trees.


The name threw me at first until I looked closer... I guess you're not
related to Eric Meyer, eh?

Anyway, yes the web has much more up to date stuff... for example the
PHP website is a great resource.

However, there are a lot of websites for people who know how to do stuff
and want to do more stuff.

There are a lot fewer websites for people who want to learn how to do
stuff and why you do stuff a certain way and give examples that have
been checked, reviewed, etc.

For example, I grabbed some code the other day from a site that did
(supposedly) exactly what I wanted to do, but it didn't.

I spent a good bit of time trying to get it to work, but because I
didn't understand what it was doing, I had a much harder time.  It was
only by luck that I went back to the browser and saw a followup
"Whoops!" post by the same author, fixing a small-but-vital mistake he
had made.

When I get code examples from the web, they will probably work.

When I get code examples from a book, I know that they will work (99% of
the time, and hey, that's why we invented the word "errata" right ;-)

Speaking of Eric Meyer, his new book brings together the good part of
the web and print, where there is a companion website already in place
with additional information, and, I suspect, errata when they appear.
 It's nearly <bw>convergence</bw> ;-)

On the other hand, I bought HTML & XHTML:The Definitive Guide and found
that I had already learned most of what it had to say by all the stuff I
had read online...

Conclusion?  It all depends on where you are starting from and where you
are trying to go.  I still think there is a place for printed materials
though, even though they will be eventually out of date (I think I've
got a "Learning HTML 3.2" around here somewhere ;-)

TjL






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