

Ask HN: are there any concise IT books out there? - resdirector

I recently decided to make the shift from physics to IT.  In physics we would have very concise (less than 100 page) books that would cover things like Fourier Transforms, Special Relativity etc.  These would usually be published by the Cambridge or Oxford university presses and would be highly theoretical and compressed.<p>In IT I've been amazed by how many 500 page behemoths that exist to describe each particular framework in excruciating detail.  I want to get a tight, in-depth explanation of MVC, design patterns, databases etc, in a short period of time.  Are there any publishers of highly compressed books out there for IT?
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ajm
I suspect that you represent a small (significant?) market segment as I have
not seen many IT book titles or series that meet your requirements. O'Reilly
have a series, "Essentials" that appear to have started off with this
intention but later titles are bloated.

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yan
Not exactly IT, but K&R's "The C Programming Language" is beautifully concise
and contains the perfect blend of examples, explanations and reference. One of
my favorite technical books and was at one point, most used, as shown by its
highly-worn cover.

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resdirector
Woops, I meant:

Are there any publishers of highly compressed books for web development?

