Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you still buy physical tech books like “Learn Rust” or “Learn Go”?

176 pointsdev_0176 comments

Or have you switched completely to Ebook?

Yes.

I read fiction as ebooks (basically exclusively since days of palm pilot and Treo, then kindle and phone and tablets), but far prefer physical books when learning a new topic including tech. Few reasons but I think it's at least partially because:

1. It's easier to mark or hold with my finger e.g. A table or reference or definition page, then return or glance at it as I progress next few pages of that topic. I find it hard to go back and forth in ebook,triply so on e-ink with slow refresh.

2. I cannot explain this but with ebook I don't get a sense of progression or framework relationship. I think with physical book my brain "maps" knowledge to something that's at beginning middle or end of book. And or it's keenly aware that this topot took two pagds thjs topic took 7 pages. Layout of tables and content and lists is firmer. Not sure how to explain it but I find that physical progression through the book solidifies it in my brain.

(I don't do much note taking or highlighting but I suppose it's good to have as an easy physical option. While I type all my work notes and my todos are electronic, I don't do really do electronic book annotation for whatever reason.)

Overall, it's at the point where existence of really good physical book may influence whether I dig into an optional technical / learning topic or not.

While I feel the same way towards point 2, I actually find it easier to follow along on a monitor. Sure, it requires a big monitor to display both the doc and the ide/editor, and possibly even the output (say the browser if it's a web framework).

Right, but that's cheating :-). I like everything better on my large monitors.

But they have zero portability, so to me they were not part of this comparison. If I am learning about a net new topic that I want to really dive into and engross myself and dedicate and get into the zone, I like to sit down on a comfy chair, lie down on the couch, or bench in a park, or best of all bring the book to shady lounge chair in Cuba lol! Kindle, tablet and physical book can do those things, my monitor setup less so :-)

I agree completely. I'd like to expand on your #1. I think that physical books make it much easier to have multiple books all open on your desk as you look between all of them, and also to have bookmarks within a single book that you flip between.

As you say, I love ebooks for fiction. But the folks building these apps and devices still haven't hit on an interaction model that works well for non-fiction.

This is the reason I love ebooks on a proper workstation with a huge monitor. I can fit eight or more books open at once... but more likely 3 or 4 plus a web-browser and notes.

I might have three copies of the same book open at once. One for linear reading, one for search and one for cross referencing. Much better than a physical book. A bookmarks side-bar works well in e-readers if there are specific locations you regularly need access to.

Tablets and physical e-readers suck in comparison to a proper computer. You also might need to strip DRM to get out of some walled-garden reader that prevents you opening multiple instances of the same book. Copy paste is a killer feature for note taking (and another reason to ditch ecosystem readers that interfere with copy paste like Apple books).

I like this a lot - particularly as there may be a range of reasons that you can’t get hold of a particular book in physical form.

I’ve never used or looked into non-ecosystem e-readers. Do you have any recommendations?

I use the Calibre e-reader with custom style overrides to get my preferred spacing, margins etc. It's ugly out of the box but doesn't require much tweaking to look like Apple Books if you know css. Works great on MacOs/Linux/Windows (I use them all). If a book has hardcoded fonts/styles/spacing I don't like then I use the Calibre editor to remove them.

I don't use Calibre as a library tool, I find that pretty annoying. I just use a git repo with folders for genres and markdown file with each book for notes.

On Android I use ReadEra.

What are your overrides? Thanks!

I use a window a bit bigger than a typical fiction paperback and a bit wider aspect ratio. I like a good bit of whitespace in the margin to help me concentrate. I don't want the text to feel crampt or my reading scanline to enter another window. After making the changes I zoom in (ctrl-mousewheel) until the text is roughly 20pt on a 34" screen (depends on the screen). The viewer might need to be restarted to sort out the layout changes.

This is what I have in my notes for the settings. Just a result of iterative poking until I like it so the css is uh... not fit for a code review :)

# Font

   Baskerville (google fonts) I think I might use Merriweather on some OS because they render differently, I can't recall offhand).

# Colours

    custom scheme:

    foreground: #2f2f2f

    background: #fcfcfc

# Page Layout > Padding

    100, 100

    75, 75

# Misc

  - remember window last position

# Headers and footers

  - progress bottom right

# Style > css

   p 
   { 
     line-height: 1.5em !important;
     font-size: 0.854em !important;
     padding-bottom: 25px; 
     text-indent: 35.868px !important;
   }
   
   div 
   { 
     line-height:1.5em; 
     padding-top: 1em; 
   }
   
   line-height: 1.5em;

Cheers - this works great. I’ll have to stick to using Calibre for library management, unfortunately, as I run a Kindle too.

In Star Trek they're always carrying around their PADDs while working, and when they've been shown to be really busy they'd have a bunch of PADDs laid out on the desk in front of them. You obviously need a bunch of Kindles.

I am a voracious physical note taker when learning, personally. There's something about the physicality of it that helps it stay in my brain. I rarely have to read my notes, once I've written them. That's part if the reason I enjoy hard copies so much, I find scribbling in the margins can have much the same effect, if not as well. Just a small summation of the paragraph in scribble form, to cut through the jargon, of possible and underlining the actionable phraseology keeps it locked in =[

I agree with everything you said except that for me it also applies to fiction.

I read a lot of fiction on my Kindle, and it's never as satisfying as leafing through a paper novel. I don't read start to finish, I tend to go back to favorite passages, or to re-read a character's introduction some chapters before (and if I get lost, some other passage is sure to catch my eye!) and ebooks make this painful.

My way of reading is very "physical", for lack of a better word. Ebooks are not good for this at all.

I still like my Kindle, because nothing beats having hundreds of novels on a single lightweight device. But to me that's its biggest and almost only advantage. (Secondary: adjusting font size as my eyesight grows less precise with age).

> 2. I cannot explain this but with ebook I don't get a sense of progression or framework relationship. I think with physical book my brain "maps" knowledge to something that's at beginning middle or end of book. And or it's keenly aware that this topot took two pagds thjs topic took 7 pages. Layout of tables and content and lists is firmer. Not sure how to explain it but I find that physical progression through the book solidifies it in my brain.

I'll just post my favorite comment again (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30183933):

>> Also, when I try to remember something I have red on a printed book, - sometimes - I can remember where on the page it was written, what else was on the page, or even what the page looked like. I experience none of that when reading on my smartphone.

>This is so obvious to me but more than once I have hit the typical robot HN user on this topic for whom it doesn't matter the medium because he's an eidetic machine. So I'll just post this:

>> Beyond treating individual letters as physical objects, the human brain may also perceive a text in its entirety as a kind of physical landscape. When we read, we construct a mental representation of the text in which meaning is anchored to structure. The exact nature of such representations remains unclear, but they are likely similar to the mental maps we create of terrain—such as mountains and trails—and of man-made physical spaces, such as apartments and offices. Both anecdotally and in published studies, people report that when trying to locate a particular piece of written information they often remember where in the text it appeared. We might recall that we passed the red farmhouse near the start of the trail before we started climbing uphill through the forest; in a similar way, we remember that we read about Mr. Darcy rebuffing Elizabeth Bennett on the bottom of the left-hand page in one of the earlier chapters.

>https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-paper-scr...

>And repost my comment from one of those times:

>>> The value provided by a physical map of a book is knowing how far along you are in the book, yet that's also available in a visual form in an ebook as well. You can even riffle through pages on most e-readers as well, seeing a preview of the page as you move quickly forward or backwards.

>>> Aside from weight, what value is the physical map really providing?

>> No, it provides more.

>> Actually your brain maps physical properties of the book to actual content, creating an overlay map over the story or the content (and our brain is really good at mentally mapping things). This is that map that is being used to know where in the book a particular piece of information is.

>> Reading on e-reader is more linear than reading a paper book. See: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-paper-scr... https://insights.uksg.org/articles/10.1629/uksg.236/ and https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/19/readers-absorb...

>> Besides, no e-reader today can let your riffle through pages as fast as paper book.

>> When you are in a novel, or in a manual, you have some kinetic and touch feedback to build memories of where's what. The book becomes an extension (à la proprioception) with much less friction than an e-read for which you have to wait for visual feedback (screen refreshing).

>> With paper books things are at the tip of your fingers.

>> E-reader have more friction.

>> That's a reason why I only read novels on e-reader and jot notes in a notepad for non-fiction books.

>> If I had the budget I'd only have physical books.

Opposite. I need ctrl-F on books. I get in, read and then I am able to revisit things I made need to quickly.

Prefer physical books for everything except when I need to ctrl+f but there is usually a pdf version of the book I can do that on and then just actually go there on the physical.

I haven't used Javascript/Typescript for the few years and some needed to refresh it, so I bought a copy of Modern JavaScript for the Impatient. This is great book, can't recommend it highly enough. Few hours reading and I was up to speed.

The trick is though that you need to spend some time choosing a book. Random software book is crap. In my case I needed a concise refresher, so I found this specific book after reading reviews for bunch of the books on Amazon. I.e. before getting a book, figure out what you actually expect from it.

Mostly this, but I'm also spending enough time in front of a screen, so being able to read my books on the sofa is a huge plus.

Yes. It's mildly embarrassing but I've learned most languages and tech in the same way: buy a book, leave it in the bathroom and whenever I pee or poop I open it at a random page and read. If it's a new page, good if not then it's a good refresh.

With ebooks it just doesn't work, with mobile devices I get distracted.

I usually read hn on the loo (not a shitpost pun/joke) as idle reading, and sometimes I discover interesting products or news. Aside: it feels like being on the toilet is the most "me time" I get lately, so maybe I should change that lol.

Do you read the book first start to finish, and then add it to your bathroom library after for this random reading, or do you go straight to random loo reads?

Usually it goes directly too loo reads except maybe the first evening where I'm "excited" of the new toy and read it outside, or if I need it as a reference for some reason.

If I don't have a basic understanding of the topic I read the first few chapters sequentially before starting the random picking, though.

Honestly, the toilet is like sacred ground for me these days. No kids, no work, no chores. I can read and be left alone and it is literally the only time of my day that is true.

My family probably thinks I have a severe bowel problem because sometimes I hang out in there for like a half hour.

Same here.

Leaving technical books in the bathroom is a crucial hack for lifelong adult learning.

Instead of that I read technical books/websites on/near a laptop that I can make flashcards on, then do Anki on the toilet.

Really, I have little piles everywhere around the house I tend to park for any length of time; I've never been able to do flashcards since my mom made me do them a ton when I was little, one of the ways I just do not learn.

I grew up the opposite; I never directed my learning in any particular direction, just picked up everything by curiosity and osmosis. I've only discovered in my 40s that you can use tools like Anki to just relentlessly hammer a subject into submission i.e. you can choose to know stuff instead of always having to be spontaneously fascinated by stuff.

Wow. This method is so ridiculous I just might have to copy it.

Seriously though, I hadn't thought about using that time (which most people are guaranteed to have every single day, several times a day) for learning new things. I think I may start using this method for exploring things that I'd "like to learn some day" but that aren't urgent/currently important for my job. This would be a way to at least make me get started learning something genuinely new!

I bought a kindle tor that very reason. I think it’s worth it since you can’t really get distracted on that

Watch out, you don't want to condition yourself to need a dump every time you see a code block or forced analogy.

One of my favorite reads was <The Sextant Handbook> (Bruce Bauer, 2nd edition). I bought it because I wanted to learn how to use a sextant. This book is THE book for learning how to operate a sextant.

I quickly realized that actually I didn't want to learn how to use a sextant.

I read it cover to cover. All those important points, so well structured and organized, and I didn't have to remember a single one of them! I could just let it pass like water.

More relaxing than fiction. No plot to follow, no characters to remember, just beautiful, detailed instructions which I could blithely ignore.

best vacation book of the decade.

And to this day, still stuck on that deserted island - at an unknown latitude and longitude.

with no laptop, no zoom meetings, nothing to do all day except fish and harvest coconuts, ...

I used to buy hundreds of physical computer books but I've switched 100% to ebooks.

I noticed that I finished the ebooks more often than physical ones and when I dissected my behavior, I realized that it was the heavy weight (e.g. 3 lbs) of the physical book that nudged me away from reading it. You can't hold a thick computer book in 1 hand. And propping it on your chest while laying down is also uncomfortable. Yes, the K&R C Language book is thin and light but a lot of books are 500+ pages and just too bulky to conveniently carry around and read anywhere.

For the few books that I need a physical reading experience to write notes on, I use the ebook and print one chapter at a time and then staple the pages. That chapter is then thin like a "magazine".

With ebooks, I've loaded the same titles on both the iPad and iPhone and can read a few pages anywhere while waiting in line.

Yes, this is the same with me. I love physical books, but being able to hangout anywhere with an iPad mini and read is the killer feature that’s getting me to switch over.

To be honest, I don't think using programming language (e.g. learn Go) books is a great way to approach learning as it's a bit too passive and often ends up as coffee table material. I'd argue trying to build a project and using the latest documentation helps things stick better. Obviously better if you have to do it for work.

On the other hand, programming and architecture concepts (e.g. designing data intensive applications) make a lot more sense as books, since they are high level concepts. In that case, use whatever medium reduces distraction. That's often in physical book form.

Technical programming language books can be, and are great if commit to typing out every single line of code presented!

I think this is fair.

I do have to say though, as a past "video learner" I've switched to books and I don't think I'm going back.

If I'm in a crunch, videos and docs are great. Learning a "new" thing, the books are great mostly because _usually_ the author is experienced and most importantly (imo) it reveals unknown uknowns.

I think for me I learn best by Doing -> Books -> Videos

But really, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

I can second the comments that a solid E ink device makes reading pdf/epub stuff a lot more enjoyable, and I greatly prefer it to reading on a traditional screen.

That said, for exactly the class of books (didactic/reference) that your question calls out, there's no substitute for physical books. For me, so much of reading a book meant to instruct involves flipping back quickly to an earlier chapter to refresh my memory on the exact definition of a concept, or paging rapidly through a section to see what headings it covers, or switching from a page in one part of the book to a page in an entirely different part so I can compare their content. There just isn't a frictionless analogue for this, even with E ink devices: and when you're trying to learn stuff, a solution with friction is barely a solution at all.

I have a huge collection of print books. I prefer print books because with ebooks I can easily just forget about them like any other webpage, blog post or paper. But when I have a physical copy it’s in my face, I can leave it on my desk, its a reminder to read it.

I feel a market gap for a software. :D

I still like physical books for the fact that I learned to study by doing a lot of highlighting and note taking. It's just a bit more of a pain in the ass to do all of that when you've just got a PDF.

You get what you pay for in a good book by a good author from a reputed publisher most of the time.

They're SO HEAVY, though, and since I live on the road my books are my heaviest possessions. I always end up giving them away when I'm done with them full of highlighted stuff which people actually seem to appreciate.

This is the last one I powered through which I recommend anyone writing go get a copy of:

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/concurrency-in-go/97814...

+1 for that recommendation

I've switched completely to ebook, but there are downsides.

First is that the ebook annotation is clunkier than physical annotation, for various reasons (zooming, palm detection etc.).

In addition to finding the right pdf annotator, one needs to find the right tablet (I choose a tablet because I like colors and smooth movement); the vast majority of the tablets are geared towards video consumption, and they have the 16:9 form factor (which is terrible for ebooks reading).

The second is that once one find the most convenient pdf annotator, they will need to get into the ridicolous practice of buying ebooks, but then actually annotate pirated copies (otherwise, with DRM, one is bound to the producer's reader).

Nonetheless, I personally find digital reading overall preferrable over the physical counterpart. The experience of reading Cracking the coding interview, after many years of ebooks, was odd and not so comfortable.

I have found ebooks (at least on my Kindle) make reading code very hard. Wraps code which is not a good look for a language like Python and not much code is shown on each page. Also I find that I can not flip back and forth when I need to check up on something

I can scan through a physical book by just flicking pages, the Kindle does not update fast enough

For non technical books, books that I will read in a linear manner, the Kindle is just fine

I read many technical books as ebooks (epub or pdf), but these are primarily about "current tech" that will most probably become obsolete in 2-3 years. But I buy real books for more fundamental technical areas, where the information will be relevant for a long time. Another factor is if the book is math heavy - around deep learning & related topics, although in many cases PDFs are ok.

Yes, and No.

Yes, I still buy physical books to learn something new. I value being away from a screen. But I don’t buy the “Learn X” style of introductory material. All that info is online.

I buy the dense deep-dives that are filled with advanced esoteric knowledge, and may take years to grok. Things that will not change much after 5-10 years. Something that I can reference and go back to over and over.

Same. Except the books I buy aren’t advanced :)

The books I can see from my couch - Code Complete (McConnell), Transaction Processing (Gray), Algorithms (Cormen), Algorithms (Sedgwick), Starting Strength (Rippetoe), All the 5/3/1 books (Wendler), etc.

I would consider algorithms advanced. I’ve been programming professionally for 8+ years, and haven’t yet found a need to study algorithms. It seems like all the scenarios where I would need some scholarly algorithm knowledge have been abstracted by some library.

I love physical books. E-books are a good supplement because of the searchability, but I don't enjoy reading e-books nearly as much as paper.

Humans are very tactile, and the book is a visual cue that sits there and reminds one that "I wanted to finish reading this." It's also easy to skim-read and navigate in a physical volume.

To me, even the order of books on the shelf is important, as they reflect the order of the material in my mind (e.g. computer science > programming languages > Rust).

What is perhaps no longer worth buying are "how to" guides that have been superseded by Google + StackExchange.

For tech books I prefer the PDF version on a tablet. Search, and clickable links. Taught myself SQL, regex, sed and awk, and a few others that way. Recently found out I learn a lot watching demos on YouTube which I dismissed before. I do like a physical book for deep studying though.

I buy physical books for this.

I tried ebooks a while back but just couldn't get into them.

I use ebooks for front-to-back reading purposes, but that's not how I consume a book for learning. I jump around, revisit spots, and even reference multiple books at once sometimes.

Yes, I prefer physical books as they allow for easier annotating & switching back and forth between pages.

Try a good eink device.

This. My 10" e reader, boox note 2, is a godsend. It runs a barebones android which gives you almost zero distractions. Annotations are great with the touch sensitive pen.

My reading increased 5-10x, b/c the friction to get that heavy book is gone. Also no more waking up the misses with a bed light, as the backlight is pretty subtle.

Sorry for the sales pitch, but these devices are just awesome.

Did you consider remarkable for your usecase ever? I am in market for e-note taking and am torn between boox note 2 vs remarkable.

I am not looking to be locked in for subscription just for pulling my notes from device to another PC

Considered it. Iirc, it doesn't have a backlight, as the reading part was more important than the writing part, the choice was easily made.

I remember remarkable saying the extra layer needed for the backlight would be detrimental for the writing experience.

I generally prefer physical Books but for tech, I prefer online version (ideally HTML or PDF). The reason is that it is easier to follow along especially if I am writing code and even copy/paste snippets if the book has those. Best tech books for me are those that are dead simple HTML/CSS with no JS so that I can just run it directly in browser without a server.

Yes, but not exclusively. The notion of 'casually leafing through a book and reading something that catches my eye' has no satisfactory analog for me in ebooks. Annotations are still kinda sucky on ebooks compared to marginalia, post-it notes amd what not. having a non electronic medium when i spend 50+ hours a week gawping at a screen is a nice mental break.

dont get me wrong, im not a luddite. i do use ebooks, and they gave some killer features, but I prefer paper. Heres another slightly perverse example: search in ebook is too good. it takes you straight to the thing being requested. in doing so, it robs me of the experience of getting familiar with the totality of the text that i get by leafing through (think of it as slightly better linear search). over time, that leafing activity gives me a really strong mental map of the whole work that i just dont get with ebooks. ymmv.

I do, but way less than I used to.

I do it partly so I can dog-ear pages, write on them, and highlight them, but mostly because quite a few publishers still just absolutely suck at formatting code samples in e-books. as an industry, they're 20 years into it and they haven't figured it out, which is just pitiful, and paying attention to that on a publisher-by-publisher basis would be an absurd waste of memory.

if I buy an ebook, it's almost guaranteed to be one the author published themselves.

edit: the other reason I do it is I have very good memory when it comes to where in a book I saw something. I can often just pick up the book and open it to the exact page, even years afterwards. I recently did that with one of Elena Feranti's Neapolitan novels, and they're often over 1000 pages. I haven't seen anything equivalent with ebooks, so for me, in that particular respect, they're inferior.

No, I don’t buy tech books. They helped earlier in my career to build my intuition but now I find tech books too high level and repetitive to be useful. At this point my intuition is strong enough that I’ve seen and understood most concepts at some point and the nuances and syntactic changes are the most important. All this said I find ebooks very difficult for reference material. Indexing into them is clumsy for me - I assume it’s mostly inexperience - but indexing into a physical book is a pattern I’m well familiar with and do it effectively. I’ve raised my now 8 year old daughter with an ereader her whole life with the goal that she become so facile with the tool that when she goes to mars and they’re conserving delta-v she won’t be at a disadvantage.

Completely switched to eBooks. Main reason is space and also availability. I move often and if I had all or most books that I read in paper form, it would both take too much space and be problem to move to other place. I don't miss paper books. I read fiction on eBook reader (first Kindle, but switched to Kobo for bigger screen) and for me, feeling is same as with paper to extent that sometimes when dust or hair drops on screen I move it away before turning page as I would do with paper book so it doesn't stay between pages. IT books I read on my computer. For them I prefer eBook format as it is easier and faster to navigate, you can do text search, copy from them etc.

Saving few trees from being converted to paper is also a motivation :)

No. Last ones I read were about XMPP and the leading Erlang server implementation of it known as eJabberd. It was fun in a way to learn from a textbook, but I think it's just too slow and deliberate for modern programming. Even back then, the real learning only started when I sat down with eJabberd's src, a code editor, and a compiler. Nowadays things move faster. Mainstream software tools shouldn't require a serious manual, and for special snags, your best friends are solid GitHub Gists and StackOverflow answers. Math is a different story.

The last tech book I acquired was on FreeBSD system administration, found discarded on a street in Berkeley, CA.

I like the physical book. Ebook readers just aren't large enough to accommodate the size that they print these books in, and I'd rather use my screen for the code I'm editing without needing to tab back to the book.

I have some ebooks (on general, steady, topics like "domain driven development" and "event sourcing" and the like), and I am still grabbing some nice bundles on Humble every now and then but I source most of my reading material from Safari / O'Reilly since a few years.

My main reason to do this is because tech is moving extremely fast and you do not longer have to throw books away on topics which are no longer relevant.

And a yearly sub at O'Reilly also prevents buying e-books on [enter the latest version of your favorite programming language/database/other tool here] over and over again...

I have to. I definitely buy some tech books on Kindle and follow web tutorials too. I'm not against doing those things. But when I care to really understand a topic in tech, for reasons I'm not even sure I can explain, I need a real, physical textbook. Strangely enough, a lot of it has to do with my brain's need to mark important sections with a pencil (yes, I know I can highlight sections on the Kindle app too...but there's something about physically circling/underlining/drawing a star near a section with a pencil that helps me to recall it later).

I do both.

Fiction: almost exclusively ebook. Sometimes there's a special edition that is hard cover and has pages that feel nicely in your hand. I'll buy that. The experience becomes more than just words. In general if it is just words read in order no flipping back and forth, just read the story ebook works really well. You get to read at a comfortable font size, don't have to keep the book open(cheaply made paperbacks can be annoying, imagine reading war and peace or atlas shrugged), don't have to worry about a book mark. It estimates for you how much time left in the chapter. It's rather nice.

Coding: Almost exclusively physical. Code listing don't work that well on a kindle, or iPad. It's nice to read a little bit, go look at the code, read a little more. ebooks suck for this.

Recipe books, reference material, also physical. flipping through an ebook doesn't always work well.

Non-fiction: Mixed. For expediency e-books. To serve as a reminder to read, physical books. If I just read a topic, want to read more on that same topic I'd rather not loose momentum and go straight to an ebook. If I'm traveling, I also prefer an ebook, extra weight to carry isn't always great. A physical book is an object though and experience and sometimes that can be helpful.

I much prefer physical books, but as I'm adopting a more nomadic lifestyle, I'm having issue carrying my books.

Question to ebooks readers, why system do you recommend to read them? iPad? kindle? computer? phone? what's the preferred format?

I don't like reading on the computer as I'm too easily distracted. And I had bad experience with kindle (many years ago, it was painfully slow, just good enough for a novel but not suitable for technical books).

I think I'm slowly changing back to physical after years of digital.

When I was studying I was all about the physical copy, even as institutions and libraries were moving to digital first. But my preference was expensive and heavy.

For most of the past decade or more, I wouldn't have been able to tell you the last time I purchased a physical book. Thanks to various publishers offering one-off 50%+ discounts via email marketing spam, Humble Bundle, and subscriptions like Perlego (and Safari back in the day) I have a digital library that far exceeds my physical.

But I've found over the years, and probably always knew deep down, I really _hate_ reading on _any_ device, and read far less of that collection as a result.

It's really note taking and highlighting for me (multiple colours), and flipping pages.

I recently discovered that I'm dyslexic (at almost 40), so this all makes much more sense now. Reading on a device is either too stimulating (distracting) or not stimulating enough. My highlighting system I developed years ago is actually crucial to improving my comprehension and engagement, especially with technical texts. But as I got older I realised I could read twice as much on a screen without falling asleep at my desk then I could sitting with a physical text. Stimulants have helped reduce the mental exhaustion and stamina so I'm not asleep at my desk come 3pm.

At work, if I ever have to cold review long collections of technical texts, or need something similar as a primary reference, I make sure I get a bound printed copy asap.

Although, turns out, my addiction to purchasing books is also a coping mechanism for when I'm stressed and am trying to procrastinate...

I like having a physical reminder of books I should be reading. I do eventually get to them. With ebooks it’s not the same. Plus I can read it away from a computer and other distractions. The value of my time spent reading a book dwarves the actual cost of the book and if I decide I’m never going to read a book I can donate it. I also get ebook copies of the same books as a reference I can access anywhere.

Yes. The clarity of graphics and diagrams is often degraded when shown on a device. In the past I tried getting around this by using one of those jumbo sized tablets but that was too hard on my eyes (even after turning on night mode). If there something akin to a massive kindle out there, I would give it another go.

I usually buy both an e-book and a paper version of books I want to learn from. Most of my reading is done on the paper one. I like to re-read certain chapters or sections at really random times and places so that's where the e-book comes in. It's a more pricey scheme but I find it really helpful for me.

Yes as I hate reading books on a computer.

To be honest it's pretty rare to go book at all for me. I mostly find free online resources to be good enough. I still have this giant bookshelf of outdated tech books that are pretty much just of value as fire fuel, so I really kind of hate physical books except for things that are timeless

I buy physical tech books and ebooks only if there is no paper version available (then I print what is interesting to me).

The reason is that I have ADHD and using ebooks is too slow. If flipping between pages takes me more than 0.1s I easily get bored often forget what I was looking for and start to procrastinate. There is also an additional reward for using a physical book, that you get to flip the pages that is akin to using a fidget spinner, so looking for information in physical book is more engaging.

I can also have multiple books next to each other with quick access, which is not possible on ebook readers (as far as I know - you have to close one book, open another etc which takes forever and if I get a notification or something popping up, I can easily get distracted and start doing something else entirely).

I’d buy physicals if they would fit my budget but alas not. Recent example: $60 book, published by a US company. With shipping + customs it comes out $130 to Europe. At that point I’d really need that book to justify paying double price just because I live at the wrong place.

Yes. As others stated, for non-fiction still my go-to is physical. Ideally I like to have the two, so I can "ctrl-f" if I want to find something fast. Also for example I bought a copy of "Python in a nutshell" because I can read it on the train very easily.

It really depends on who wrote the book. I don't really care about whether it's on papers or on a screen.

I was once quite confident about my knowledge on PHP (version 5), thought I learned it all. Then I brought a book from O'Reilly for the newbies in the team, flipped a few pages before handover, learned a few new damn things myself.

I would totally recommend to read a book while learning a big topic (such as a language, framework etc). There are so many things that if you know, you'll be a better user.

Yes, so many things change, but, so many things don't. Plus, you can buy another book to learn the new knowledge.

With that said, I want to go back and remind: know the author and read the review before you buy, don't waste your time on bad books.

I buy physical copies of two books for each language I work with:

- The <Language> Language book - Effective <Language> book, if I actually start using the language professionally

For example, for JavaScript, this was "Eloquent JavaScript" and "JavaScript: the good parts".

I find that the "The <Language> Language" books are of exceptional quality and have a very long shelf-life. They go in depth into the design of the language, decisions made, and provide high-quality, idiomatic code examples that you just cannot reliably find on the internet. You cannot know what good Java/Python/Ruby/Rust code looks like while you're learning the language.

Once there's a book for Rust of the same caliber and depth as e.g. Stroustrup's for C++, I'll get that. But "how to?" books. No. There's no point. The web does that.

I also have a hard time reading books these days because I just fall asleep once I curl up with them.

I do occasionally pick up reference books and flip through them but don't in general buy new ones. For some specialized domain I'll try to find classic CS textbooks on the topic. But their price has gotten crazy.

But I did just line up all my classics (Knuth, Smalltalk Blue Book, "The Linux Programming Interface" etc.) in a nice line on my desk so they'd be visible in my webcam for calls ;-) Nice and pretentious.

I'm studying Programming Rust (O'Reilly, 2nd edition one year old, 800+pp) and I think it's fantastic. I am a better programmer for it.

4.6 stars wtih 200+ reviews on Amazon, for what it's worth.

(owner of Knuth and TLPI)

Yes occasionally. I try to purchase most texts as PDFs to avoid the hassle of moving hundreds of lbs of books around, but will splurge on high quality physical texts.

The only issue is that there’s a lot of really high quality work out there! It’s hard to be picky.

I still buy physical books just not for technical stuff (for learning stacks, languages etc I do it by building and stackoverflow-ing and building my person collection of recipes). Once exception to this is theoretical stuff which I feel I get a lot out of from textbooks (eg the dragon book, Tanenbaum's X, Ben Pierce's books on type theory etc). Too bad text books are expensive as F though!

For non-tech stuff (fiction, leadership etc) I find lying down with a good physical book unbeatable for me.

Logically eReaders are supposed to be superior with not taking and bookmarking and all that but I just have not been able extract the same satisfaction from them sadly.

I buy physical tech books because I enjoy writing notes in them to keep track of concepts while reading.

For example I have a copy of the excellent Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision by Hartley and Zisserman filled with little sketches and notes I took in the margins while trying to grok the book, and it’s kinda nice to be able to thumb through the book and review concepts complete with my previous thoughts and notes. I could of course do the same on my tablet or in a separate notebook of course, but something about the space constraints and commitment of real marks on paper makes it feel more rewarding.

After years learning from e-books (the only physical book I owned was "The C Programming Language"), I decided to go back to physical books because I just can't look at an LCD screen that long. I have a Kindle I read fiction books on, and it's great, but for EPUBs, not PDFs.

I've only bought textbooks in the beginning, just to have something that can last months or years of study, but just bought a few related to programming languages. Sometimes I would rather not open my laptop or tablet (tons of distractions waiting to happen) just to revisit a few concepts or to do a cursory glance at a few pages.

The discussion is interesting, but I also created a HN Poll, for those who like statistics:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32889294

6 votes so far.

I was a very early convert to e-books. I had one of the original Kindles, eventually a Kindle DX to read larger-format books (like tech stuff).

I would still buy books sometimes (fiction and non), for special editions or for things where I was buying direct (or from a good publisher) and wanted to support the author, but, I've completely stopped at this point.

At some point during the pandemic and lockdowns I realized I was drowning in physical media and I've made a very conscious effort to divest myself of as much of it as I can, donated tons of books and movies and I've bought none since.

I read on my mobile. If I fall in love with a book then i buy a physical copy for my library.

Same with music and record collection.

I want my kids to be able to browse my stuff and discover the previous decades as I did with my parent's collection

No. I don't buy physical tech books. I prefer to read the digital source so I can learn from multiple source simultaneously. In case I want to read it again or come back to specific location in the book, I use bookmarks.

The only books I buy physically is fiction and non-fiction books. Fiction is the best when I read it physically while chilling and having a cup of tea. It just doesn't work if I read it in my phone, it just distracting and I kinda hate blue light when I want to get off from any device to chill.

Yes. I typically read one fiction and one non-fiction book at a time, and the non-fiction is usually a programming book. My most recent has been Programming Rust which I’ve really enjoyed.

Only the ones I know I will eventually read from cover to cover (not always sequentially, however). Usually this means the high quality ones.

Sometimes I buy a book that in retrospect is not as interesting as I thought, and I regret it. Space and weight are precious resources.

There is something about reading from a screen, even the e-Ink ones, that does not match the experience of reading from paper, in my view. I can't remember being engaged to an ebook as I am sometimes from a good paper book.

Strong no...

.. don't have the space to keep them around. Only digital now. But honestly, I can't recall the last I bought a book like o'Reilly, manning, etc.

Personally, no. I've completely switched to ebooks.

That being said, I'm the author of an ebook about Rust and Security (Black Hat Rust[0]) that sold thousands of copies, and I've been asked a few times for a physical edition: some prefer to have the hardcopy version on the desk when studying and programming.

[0]https://kerkour.com/black-hat-rust

As many misgivings about dead trees that anyone may have, they sure are the way better format if you're buying someone a gift.

Cool book by the way I put it on my list of things to check out!

Yes I buy sometimes. Reason? In Canada sometimes an ebook is priced the same or nearly the same as a paper version AND you get ebook version coupon anyway.

Yes, I buy physical books. It's for purely practical reasons: the interface is better. With physical books, you can flip back and forth more easily and insert more useful notes. Even things like footnotes and endnotes still work better in physical books.

While I have technical ebooks, they tend to be the kind that don't require much cross referencing, i.e., the kind that can be read cover to cover like a novel.

I still buy non fiction books like this but mostly for others.

I usually read the ebook. Once done I put the hardcopy on my bookshelf.

Then whenever someone might need one of these I lend it out.

The books I know have helped others: Venture Deals, Crucial Conversations, The hard thing about hard things, The GO programming language, Seeking SRE, Site Reliability Engineering and many many more.

I am also always happy when a book returns and you can see some wear. It makes me smile.

I like to buy technical books. There's some inexplicable satisfaction from holding them, and I like the way they decorate my house on a bookshelf.

I am expecting 4 of them to land on my doorstep any moment now. downsides are of course cost and weight, upsides are that I can read them in bed and don't require a computer nearby. Not being able to type/cut/paste immediately is often an asset when I'm trying to get to grips with new concepts. Running the code in my head helps me form hypotheses and experimental goals.

I highly prefer physical because I already spend too much time in front of a screen, plus I like the versatility they offer (e.g. highlighting, making notes, bookmarking, moving them around, etc.). The only digital books I have bought were from the Beta / Early Access programs of Manning and the Pragmatic Bookshelf, and few from independent authors who decide to go digital exclusively.

When I wanted to learn something new, I used to go and buy 10 books on the subject. I would find something useful in all of them, but rarely, in fact never, did a single book have everything I needed. And half the books would rubbish. But $500 got me the information I needed.

Now I go out and buy 10 Udemy courses and have the same experience: 5 are rubbish and maybe two cover everything I need.

Yes, I prefer the physical experience more. It's more portable (holding a book in a good reading position is easier than holding a laptop in a good reading position).

Page navigation is also easier and doesn't change when the viewport is adjusted, which is really jarring.

Plus it's a reminder that I've got the book and should read it, as opposed to existing only as a tab in Brave.

I once was spending large amounts of money on physical tech books, mostly on new programming languages or frameworks. However, I felt that by the time I was buying them they were already outdated often. Today, I usually start learning by just doing it, using the new tech and keep my way googling until I somehow become comfortable.

I definitely prefer physical books for technical stuff since it’s easier to look back at stuff I’d read before. On the other hand, I never buy books about programming languages, mostly about algorithmic stuff. If I am trying to learn a programming language I usually find some electronic material just so I can copy-paste code examples.

I do buy physical tech books still but I tend to not use them as much as before. However, I still find value in having it on the table and using it as a reference at times, I think mostly because it forces me to switch focus from my screen to something else and that makes it easier to focus on learning rather than staring at my code.

Nope with an exception for CS academic theory. One year for CS is like a decade for human life and thus almost every IT book gets obsolete after a relase. That's why I read official docs or getting started, they are far more accurate and up to date. In rare occasions where doc is not too good, I check source code - it never lies.

Yeah it really depends on the book.

I have a lot of algorithm, math and theory books. Theory rarely changes, it’s just added onto.

I also have a few books on C around that I’ve worked through and use as a reference.

Other than that, I just check docs.

I recently bought "Code" so it can be discovered by my children when they are older.

This is the only reason I ordered a hardcopy.

I have read the whole Linux book, I knew I wouldn't understand half of it but just reading it is enough, when it comes to need to use some of the cli I know what is possible to do, and so I know what to google for. Once you read a book you won't forget what's in it, it'll come back when you need it.

Yes.

Their tactile and physical nature helps me remember things. They also don't run out of batteries and I write notes in them. I also spend a lot of my day looking at screens, so it's nice to have something which isn't a screen to look at.

I do envy the people who can read ebooks though, it just doesn't work as well for me.

No, but I borrow them from the library! Paper books are great, even more so when you can read them for free.

I’m always more thrilled on physical paper book falling on my face, when I fall asleep, just to remind me to put it on the night table and turn off the lights. Like “Fluent Python” or “TCP/IP Guide”.

To learn programming, I think, doing helps. So keeping something online to copy-type/try, understand (and repeat) has been a preferable way for me. Ebooks work for this workflow better. I can easily skim the content and get to the point soon with ebooks.

eBooks. An annoying thing is price: I want to be able to read on my Linux laptop (without DRM, and without reading through some ridiculous Web site), but I'll see the book for less money in paper format than it is in legitimate ebook format.

I also buy a lot fewer books than I used to. Early in my career, I was a "books person", and would line my office/cubicle shelves with a large collection of books. Today, I can get a lot of information for free on the Web. When I go to buy a technical book now, it's because I have an important major need of info on a topic, and a particular book is known to be especially valuable collection/presentation for that.

Honestly, no, because the book prices are kind of high for the average income in my country. I usually download them from the internet (quasi-legally - since internet laws are effectively non-existant here) and print them at home if I really want paperback.

I no longer buy physical books, tech or otherwise, as in 2010 I switched completely to ebooks.

Actually, I recently bought a couple of decades-old tech books of retrocomputing value. I found digital copies I regularly reference, but those books are so valuable I want backups.

I’ll generally download a local copy of the language spec and the standard library docs. Rust’s borrow checker aside, most mainline programming languages have enough in common it’s usually all I need. Google’s there when I need more.

Elixir and forth were the big exceptions.

What did you do for them?

Mostly reading a lot of blog posts and whichever e-material was available. Also read a lot of code.

So on the scale for the original question, ebook over regular books. I used to use physical books in the past, but with the broad availability of material on the web, my need for them dropped dramatically.

Majority of my tech learning relies on Text and Video Tutorials on Youtube and off-course documentation. Last book I bought was DID(Data Intensive applications) 3 years ago. Prior to that I did not buy tech books for 10+ years.

I still like paper books for hard tech.

If I'm glancing or lightly learning, I use the Apple Books app on my iPad. Kindle is for novels only -- it doesn't handle tech book layouts well.

Right now, I'm reading a paper Go book, but a Docker ebook.

It depends entirely on the type of information. If it’s something like Pragmatic Programmer I prefer physical copy. If it’s a reference book like how to do x in language y pdf makes it faster to locate information.

Only ebooks. But books themselves, the good ones, are a really useful resource that I still haven't been able to replace despite the availability of many other free resources like blogs and video tutorials.

All of my pleasure reading has been ebooks for years now, but I will prefer paper books for actually learning things. I like being able to highlight, underline, etc.

Definitely yes. I love them, seeing them on my bookshelf is motivation to return to them and complete them. Separately, I also love ebooks for night reading and not requiring space on my bookshelf.

Physical books for everything. I've been burned by too many tech companies to trust ebooks. I keep a collection of PDFs that are freely available online but otherwise I buy physical copies.

I have switched to ebooks, given the rate as technical books get out of date, no need to keep killing trees for information that is outdated after one year.

Only for non technical books do I still go for paper.

Yes. Whenever possible.

When I’m reading a book I don’t want to be near a computer. Even a technical book, I will read first and then come back to do work multiple bits of sample code later.

I just can't focus as easily on e-books. I always end up feeling like I need to be doing something more productive if I'm in front of the computer.

I don't buy everything in dead-tree format, but I always have a few books for evening reading in bed. (My reading is almost exclusively tech books.)

I bought the rust book because it looked nice. But it's annoying lugging around a huge book when trying to squeeze it in during work.

I love to handle physical books but hate collecting them - wish I could return them to Amazon for half the price. Selling is too much work.

Yes, paper books on hard tech just easier for performant and/or thorough reading. And I just love the taste and look of real books.

Conceptually, the book is a mediocre method of learning a language or tech subject. Anything "Learn X the hard way" with recent commits will be more helpful. The concept is to run the exercises needed to gain fluency in the key features and accessing/understanding the core documentation. A standalone book frozen in time with idiosyncratic documentation is not helpful.

At their best, books can provide analogies and parables to build a narrative about a technology without specifics.

Completely to ebooks. I got tired of lugging tons of physical books around when I move, and also needing to store them somewhere.

https://libgen.is/ is good for sampling books

eBooks help me fight against the conspiracy of the world making fonts smaller ;). The features of PDF readers far outweigh hardcopies. Being able to control + to be able read without straining my eyes is priceless. Marking and searching are easy and fast. Saving space and the planet. Reading hardcopies makes feel old(er).

Which PDF readers do you recommend?

zathura is fantastic. minimalistic UI and vi-style keybindings. It has a searchable table of contents, and customizable keybindings. recolor (invert-colours) is nice for night-time reading.

I still buy physical books, I just find them easier to read when I really want to concentrate and take the material in.

Not since I started subscribing to O'Reilly's online ebook system confusingly called "Safari."

I read them online. I read multiple books at a time to understand a concept from multiple perspectives.

I personally enjoy physical books more and I feel I learn better as well.

So the answer is almost always yes, unless I borrow them.

I like physical books, but IME for programming languages they suffer from getting out of date too fast

I did borrow it from the library but eventually found more up to date knowledge on internet. I prefer book.

Never did, still don't. I pretty much figure things out by doing them, or read occasional articles.

Yes. Nothing beats taking notes by hand and scribbling on the text book itself for the way I learn.

the only stuff I buy for paper are books where the knowledge isn't going out of date.

a book on graph theory, the math of deep learning or a math heavy treatment of graphics programming, yes, I'll get the dead tree version.

${framework ofthe week api version X} in 21 days? -> ebook only

Yes, it's nice to be able to make side notes, bookmarks, and place it in a remindable place.

I have no more room to have books :( I have given away most of my books to my colegues.

I just this week bought "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" by Martin Kleppmann.

Same. Along with several others during the last 2 months.

Yes.

I bought a book on go concurrency. I love seeing it on my shelf. I loved reading it on the train to work.

yes. I find they help me escape tutorial hell, or at least ease my mind on that concern.

I have learned about 5 new languages in the past 5 years, mostly by creating a Tetris clone every time. since all of them pick up the same patterns except for Rust, I only read quick guides to get acquainted to the syntax. then started learning the languages from specific concepts I needed to touch on before delving in the architecture of the project. With rust I did read the entire https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ but it was enough for me, CTRL+F is a big thing for me, and the book here wasn't slow as most big programming books are. But all of this was after +12 in programming. I do remember reading C++ & PHP from a book and loving it. But those were my first books and my entry level books which I wouldn't apply now.

tl;dr if you're new, a book might be the way to go. If not, I do not see why you would need a new book, just go here https://learnxinyminutes.com/

Yes, because there is no replacement for paper books that has the same features.

Yes. This year I bought books on Elm and Haskell.

I also read article and watch related conferences

Between ~2017 and now I bought one physical tech book and many ebooks.

Are you all able to retain the knowledge from ebooks?

If there isn't a free PDF of it online then yeah

Yes. Good information is worth paying for.

ebooks all the way. seems wasteful when after two years the book becomes outdated and you need newer version of it.

Yes.

I do not need to charge a book when on the road.

Tech books are quickly out of date so it just feels like a waste of material. I’m not sure eBook is much better though.

eBooks help me fight against the world conspiracy of making fonts smaller ;). All the features on PDF readers far outweigh hard copies. Reading anything hard copy makes me feel older. PDFs are really awesome. Put it in the cloud and access anywhere, any time. space savings, saving trees, they are great.

Yes, I like physical books

no - they are immediately outdated by the time it gets in your hands.

Neither. The web provides all the resources I’ve ever needed for such topics.

Yep

bold of you to assume i ever bought them to begin with.

I like to read in the public transport. Electronic books are the best choice

never did, books become outdated too quickly, so I use online resources

I don’t buy tech books. Ever. If I want to learn a language I’ll go straight to code (find any simple project to do with it).

It’s my way of doing it. Might not be the best, but it works for me.

Same here, books on specific technologies are useless to me because you can learn more from the official manuals and playing with it than from someone else's interpretation of it X versions ago.

The tech books I do get are more meta, books about programming in general or design in general, things that you can't just find in a manual.

There's "tech" beyond programming languages - for example, computer networks.

The vast majority of tech books are garbage and are often obsolete I don’t read any without a good recommendation and I get few. I always see a few gems like “mastering vbscript” kicking around corporate offices.

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