BOOKS ARE SO FSCKING EXPENSIVE!

[DWW]

boo
I hate the price of books... $40 for a 300 page computer programming book? pfft.

I want to say no. But I want to be the Annakin Jedi of programming. So its like I can't say no to get countless years of advice from books. NO these specific books aren't available on CD *hint hint kazza*

Have $213 CAD books worth (5 books) in my shopping cart on amazon.ca They are on sale believe it or not. All 30% off so figure I might pay $320 or so once amazon.ca stops this sale which could be any day (though it was on back in february when I ordered $170 books!!!! grrr)

All come as really good highly rated books though and people claim to save countless hours.

 

[ElFenix]

$90 for my civ pro book

cheap printing and binding too.

i mean, the latest harry potter book is just as many pages, better put together, and was $20.

 

[Broohaha]

half.com is your friend.

 

[gentobu]

$130 for my calc book :/ At least I get to use it for two classes...

 

[DWW]

PS for those curious they are:

The Practice of Programming - BWK & Rob Pike
Effective STL - Scott Meyers
Effective C++ - Scott Meyers
Design Patterns - Gamma et all
Writing Effective Use Cases - Alistair Cockburn (this one is more for school... I hate use cases )

PS is there any other good design books anyone can recommend? Most "technical" ones (eg language tutorials) I get online anyhow like Thinking in C++

 

[cheapgoose]

dude, get this, my Machine Design class needs two $130 books. and we will be using maybe half of the book in both cases.

 

[tokamak]

last year, i paid almost $1500 for books alone for the two semesters combined. :|

 

[Turkish]

Originally posted by: tokamak
last year, i paid almost $1500 for books alone for the two semesters combined. :|

same here darn student rapers

 

[eakers]

i bought a book on algebraic structures that was less than 200 pages and cost $150

 

[Heisenberg]

I spent over $300 for books for three classes.

 

[Hector13]

Originally posted by: Broohaha
half.com is your friend.

exactly, I get all my books from here (probably about $100 worth every month or so).

 

[Lithium381]

sell your books back before they come out with a new edition and you'll make at least 40% back....after that it's not THAT expensive!

 

[Ness]

Learning Maya Foundation: $89. Not too bad. The Dog ate it a week later though.

 

[wasssup]

i spent $500 on books for this semester...ALL USED...i actually bought them from the campus bookstore and was going to return it on the last day allowed, but i was 15mins too late that day and they wouldn't open the door

 

[DWW]

Originally posted by: Lithium381
sell your books back before they come out with a new edition and you'll make at least 40% back....after that it's not THAT expensive!

The idea though is that I want longterm books. The ones I've pointed out above are pretty general and last for 10 years. Granted C++ is "dated" so the C++ & STL ones might not be the greatest over 5 years from now heh...

Technical books on a specific product thats old 12 months from now ... I -hate- those. Such is why I buy general C++ books that are not platform specific. I use Microsoft Visual C++ but just read the freebie stuff online for that

 

[Jeff7181]

$40 for a text book is cheap. My books in college were on average $150 per class.

 

[Triumph]

addall.com

 

[dmurray14]

ooh, $213 CAD! I had to pay $450 USD for my HIGH SCHOOL books!

 

[ufs]

Originally posted by: DWW
PS for those curious they are:

The Practice of Programming - BWK & Rob Pike
Effective STL - Scott Meyers
Effective C++ - Scott Meyers
Design Patterns - Gamma et all
Writing Effective Use Cases - Alistair Cockburn (this one is more for school... I hate use cases )

PS is there any other good design books anyone can recommend? Most "technical" ones (eg language tutorials) I get online anyhow like Thinking in C++

offtopic. I am kind of disturbed by that comment of yours about use cases. Seems like you want to be a programmer all your life. Trust me, no matter how much fun it seems to be during first two years of college, it tends to be irritating and annoying later on. However, designing and analysis is something that will help you all your life and is next step after programming. Think of it like this. An architect designes the building, thinks about every aspect of it, makes a model or two, and when everything is finalized, he hands it over to builder who just constructs what architect has modeled. Same analogy works for system designer and programmer. Programmer just programs according to the specifications given by the systems analyst/designer/architect. I know in most cases first job after getting out of college is a programming job but it doesn't last more than a couple of years and most people do get promoted to senior/designer level positions, but if you don't have the right skills then you might get layed off or stay at the same level for a very long time. I have few friends who survived the layoffs because of the fact that they were not only programmers and the company lacked some nice analysts. So while other employees were being layed off, a couple of my friends got promoted.

 

[DWW]

No doubt I think design is important. I think its very important in fact. I wouldn't mind typing out a 100 page manual with propped up screenshots before I commit to coding. Just that I hate use cases that I had to do at school. It was so basic, connect-the-dot type things with "actors" and "cases". I know that the next step after programming IS analysis despite how much I'd rather just stick to coding. And even though I toss together small 10,000 line projects of my own without much design (and mind you they work out well), I know that is not the same with 250,000 line group projects that take a year or two to develop. I just wish that you could design in a different manner without the use cases is all. My teacher always criticized the words and stuff I would use; claimed I was overly technical in the design. Basically she wanted me to say "user clicks button" "button causes event xyz"

Bleh... I guess ~ 12 years of tossing stuff together on my own created some bad habits

Originally posted by: ufs

Originally posted by: DWW
PS for those curious they are:

The Practice of Programming - BWK & Rob Pike
Effective STL - Scott Meyers
Effective C++ - Scott Meyers
Design Patterns - Gamma et all
Writing Effective Use Cases - Alistair Cockburn (this one is more for school... I hate use cases )

PS is there any other good design books anyone can recommend? Most "technical" ones (eg language tutorials) I get online anyhow like Thinking in C++

offtopic. I am kind of disturbed by that comment of yours about use cases. Seems like you want to be a programmer all your life. Trust me, no matter how much fun it seems to be during first two years of college, it tends to be irritating and annoying later on. However, designing and analysis is something that will help you all your life and is next step after programming. Think of it like this. An architect designes the building, thinks about every aspect of it, makes a model or two, and when everything is finalized, he hands it over to builder who just constructs what architect has modeled. Same analogy works for system designer and programmer. Programmer just programs according to the specifications given by the systems analyst/designer/architect. I know in most cases first job after getting out of college is a programming job but it doesn't last more than a couple of years and most people do get promoted to senior/designer level positions, but if you don't have the right skills then you might get layed off or stay at the same level for a very long time. I have few friends who survived the layoffs because of the fact that they were not only programmers and the company lacked some nice analysts. So while other employees were being layed off, a couple of my friends got promoted.

 

[QueHuong]

Originally posted by: DWW
Think of it like this. An architect designes the building, thinks about every aspect of it, makes a model or two, and when everything is finalized, he hands it over to builder who just constructs what architect has modeled. Same analogy works for system designer and programmer.

Umm...no. The architect gets all fancy and overly creative in designing the superficial parts of the building. Then he hands the drawing to the civil engineers who have to wrack their brains to figure out a way to build the frickin building with no 90 degree angles, along with its curving, sloping walls, and a roof topped with a gigantic figure that slightly resembles a bird where its center of gravity is concentrated at what would be the beak while being supported upright by five 3.5" steel rods located at what would be the tail.

<-- Goes to a college with a pretty good engineering and architecture programs: the civs and the CAD drawing pansies hate each other. Their highest math is the engineering college's prerequisite.

 

[ufs]

Originally posted by: MindStorm

Originally posted by: DWW
Think of it like this. An architect designes the building, thinks about every aspect of it, makes a model or two, and when everything is finalized, he hands it over to builder who just constructs what architect has modeled. Same analogy works for system designer and programmer.

Umm...no. The architect gets all fancy and overly creative in designing the superficial parts of the building. Then he hands the drawing to the civil engineers who have to wrack their brains to figure out a way to build the frickin building with no 90 degree angles, along with its curving, sloping walls, and a roof topped with a gigantic figure that slightly resembles a bird where its center of gravity is concentrated at what would be the beak while being supported upright by five 3.5" steel rods located at what would be the tail.

<-- Goes to a college with a pretty good engineering and architecture programs: the civs and the CAD drawing pansies hate each other. Their highest math is the engineering college's prerequisite.

yeah well... i was just giving an example... i know it wasnt 100% accurate but illustrated my point well.
By the way, I liked the way you critisized the architects.

 

[dighn]

cannot compare to the price of text books

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: Triumph
addall.com

You beat me to it, Triumph...
The smartest kids in college don't shop at the campus bookstore
You can save a fortune buying online, even from overseas.... After reselling my books to unsavy students the following semesters, I ended up with a profit every semester after my freshman year.

 

[Staples]

You will really hate Software Engineering books. They contain nothing but a lot of BS and they cost like a dollar per page.