I have one. I was hoping to use it for this purpose as well, but it's rather unpleasant to use for PDFs IMHO. As another user noted, you can always convert books to a free-flowing format such as mobi. I use Calibre for this but I find the output to be rather hit-or-miss. I find that the formatting sometimes slips through as text and that I have to wade through pages of extra text to get to the content (a pain in the ass on the Kindle.) Still, it's better than toting a dozen technical manuals with you everywhere you go.

Mine was gift so I couldn't tell you whether it was worth the money.

The (small) kindle reads PDF files, but usually the font is too small to read comfortably. With the new firmware upgrade one can resize pdfs, but I'm not sure if I want to read a programming book this way.

I think the best way is to convert the PDF to the Mobi format with the free mobipocket creator:

http://www.mobipocket.com/en/downloadsoft/productdetailscrea...

The conversion works pretty well and if you have patience you can even generate things like table of contents and proper metadata.

Edit: you may also know that oreilly sells an ebook "package" with books in the following formats: Android, Mobi, PDF, ePub. For example:

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596158071/

(I'm not affiliated with oreilly in any way)

The new software update a few weeks back has enhanced PDF support. http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_k...

Oh and also I remember DRM issues with these, is that still an issue with the Kindle?

For reading technical PDFs, the DX (still $489, sadly) is really the best choice. I'm currently in the process of reading a few different technical PDFs, and they all look great and are perfectly legible. I haven't had any trouble with equations or images either. Unfortunately, the thing really is pricey, and if it gets damaged there doesn't appear to be any repair program for it.

I wouldn't bother. It's made for reflowable lightly formatted text, like in a normal novel.