Here are a few questions.
Have you ever read SICP (online)? Have you ever read The Practical Common LISP (online)? Have you ever read any e-book worth 400 pages completely?
I guess not.
Have you ever read SICP (online)? Have you ever read The Practical Common LISP (online)? Have you ever read any e-book worth 400 pages completely?
I guess not.
The point is that you don't need money for books to learn CS. You just need a laptop and the ability to get online.
If you find reading on a screen difficult, I'd recommend turning the room light on, positioning your screen so you don't have a glare or reflection, blowing up the text, and sitting at a good distance from the screen.
Is this to imply e-books are a detriment to your study? My reading material, long and short, is almost exclusively digital now. In fact, I get very disappointed when there isn't a digital version. I'm close to an evangelist so I'll defend it to great lengths if you challenge me.
I will admit though, this is very much personal taste. But taste is the least of your worries if you're trying to learn, especially CS.
The day I found the SICP pdf, man was I happy.
I have read all sorts of other books in such a format. It ends up saving me lots of money, and if I just reformat the text to something I am more comfortable with (i.e. a pdf 2 pages side by side), it can be awesome. No need to drag 10+lbs of textbooks to classes and I can store hundreds of books between my iPhone and my laptop from the aforementioned textbooks to leisure reading.
Yes, I do prefer to have a paper copy of some books, but when resources are limited, there isn't much you can do. Online copies/ebooks can be amazing in that respect. I had a subscription to Safari Books Online until I found out either ACM or IEEE (can't remember...) had access to most of the books I wanted, and I also discovered my college library had Safari access that I also occasionally use. To me it costs less to access those hundreds of books online than to buy a single dead tree book every year, and I live in the United States.
You will have to do the exercises eventually and so there is no escape from the screen. I usually read a book about programming by executing the examples and solving the exercises while occasionally looking at the text for some guidance when I am stuck.. has anyone read a programming book which is ~100% executable (no cheating with excessive comments ;-))?