Nah, fuqit, I'll just buy it ;-)
NoStarch never let me down so far, and paying USD 60 (or 40, or whatever) is such a marginal difference for a book you're going to spends dozens of hours on.
NoStarch never let me down so far, and paying USD 60 (or 40, or whatever) is such a marginal difference for a book you're going to spends dozens of hours on.
Is that a feature? I'm constantly frustrated by books that use many words to say little. Wasting hours on such books tends to be negative value, and I shouldn't buy them even for two cents..
The book is supposed to be around 270 pages, so verbosity probably won't be an issue.
I am right now working through "Python Crash Course" as an intermediate Python programmer. I very quickly read through chapters 1-8 so far and did all the exercises (rather simple ones), just to make sure that I'm not missing out anything on the basics. In the last couple of chapters, I actually picked up two or three pieces of knowledge I wasn't aware of. I spent around five to ten hours on this so far. This approach sounds terribly inefficient.
However, working through a beginner's book as an intermediate Python programmer, and only getting half a dozen of really new information out of it, gives me the confidence I need at this stage. So I don't consider it as a waste, but rather as an exercise in patience and repetition.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I think people overrate the monetary costs of books.
In this case, I'm definitely curious about the book and would like to skim through it just to satisfy that curiosity, but I have my doubts as to whether I'll get much out of it (I've been writing C for 15 years and I do it professionally). Maybe there are gems of wisdom (or things I've overlooked) in it that would make it worthwhile, but it's possible I'd just regret the time and money spent :-(
Many books nowadays, also from NoStarch, are released as early access books. Your book does not run under the early access program, or at least not yet.
Is this a decision made by you as an author? Or is the kind of book not really suited for early access? I could imagine that introductory books work well as early access books; readers could work through the first couple of chapters, while later chapters are still being written or refined.
Just curious...
I probably won't be able to read it before July, anyway, because I have to finish my bachelor's degree first. But I think it's not a bad time for a financial contribution to my favorite tech book publisher, so I already bought the book "blindly".