

My wife's and my holiday weekend project: A database of intro books - michaelfairley
http://bestintrobook.com

======
david927
_My wife's and my_

Nice looking site. It missed what I searched for (quantum mechanics) but it
looks very nice.

~~~
michaelfairley
(NP and NP)'s sounds more natural to me than (NP's and NP's). We say "Jack and
Jill's story", not "Jack's and Jill's story"

~~~
rubergly
Grammar girl has an explanation [1] of the rule I've heard elsewhere and
always followed---splitting it into "Jack's and Jill's" if they have separate
and distinct things (so "Jack's and Jill's stories") and attaching the
possessive to the compound entity if they share the item (so "Jack and Jill's
story"). So in this case you're definitely correct about not splitting up the
possession.

I haven't been able to find anything authoritative to explain what to do when
there is a pronoun involved, though I believe the correct form would be "my
wife and my..." and not "my wife and I's".

[1] [http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-compound-
posses...](http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-compound-
possession.aspx)

~~~
baltcode
How do you differentiate between saying the project was a combined effort vs.
talking about two distinct entities. eg., My wife and my projects were
casualties of the war. Did the projects the two of you were working on
destroyed in the war, or did you lose your wife and your projects?

~~~
delinka
I rewrite to avoid the ambiguity:

My wife and I worked on projects that became casualties of the war.

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ams6110
What authority is determining the "best" book for a topic?

What's your plan for adding entries for topics? I was expecting a "suggest a
book" link, but that sort of assumes that "best" = "most popular" which may
not be your criteria.

~~~
michaelfairley
My definition for "best" is the book that most experts in the field would
recommend to their non-expert friends.

~~~
vitordemario
And where do you get that data from?

~~~
shriphani
I think a very good way of doing this is putting a question on quora and
picking out the most upvoted answers.

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auxbuss
Nits:

1\. When one drinks one's tea from a cup and saucer, one extends one's little
finger. I believe the colonists call this one's pinky. Not to do is
unconscionable.

2\. One does not say "Sorry, chap", but "Sorry, old chap".

3\. As to the long coat without tails together with a topper, I am speechless.

Joshing aside, old bean, great idea.

------
desigooner
I searched for C# / C Sharp and I got recommendations for K&R, a Book on
Cognitive Science and a book on rock climbing.

Looks like it's missing reccos for Django, Dot Net, C#, etc. and some rather
specialized stuff like neurology/neuroscience which I didn't really expect to
be on the list anyways.

Good effort thought. I'm going to bookmark the site for future reference

------
mbesto
You and your wife don't have kids do you?

<http://bestintrobook.com/books/sex>

Good work! ;)

~~~
SamColes
This is the same first search that I made :P

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ascuttlefish
A search for alcholism gave me "How to brew: Everything you need to know to
brew beer right the first time." Oops!

Neat idea! I like it.

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nlh
Great idea -- some thoughts/feedback:

1) Your suggestion for the best intro book on "ruby" assumes that Ruby = Ruby
on Rails. I think many might disagree -- I'd differentiate and throw in a book
on Ruby the language.

2) To the point of how the choices are made -- maybe institute some sort of
voting system (Winner with X votes, runner-up #1, runner-up #2). I think it
gives more credibility to the site if it's a community resource and the
selections are based on something other than the site-owner's opinion.

Good idea and good weekend project! Also, excellent that you and your wife can
work together on stuff like this - that's a great thing.

~~~
techiferous
...and for Ruby, I find Chris Pine's "Learn to Program" a good choice:
<http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram>

------
xyzzyb
The best intro book for Rails should be Michael Hartl's ruby on rails
tutorial. <http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book>

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asymptotic
The basis of your website was the subject of a wildly popular Metafilter
thread, which may interest you:

What single book is the best introduction to your field (or specialization
within your field) for laypeople?

[http://ask.metafilter.com/71101/What-single-book-is-the-
best...](http://ask.metafilter.com/71101/What-single-book-is-the-best-
introduction-to-your-field-or-specialization-within-your-field-for-laypeople)

------
japaget
Overall, a good start, with a few rough edges. Searching on python resulted in
"Dive Into Python" and "Learn Python the Hard Way", which are very good
recommendations in my opinion. However, searching on "public speaking"
referred me to a book on public radio, and searching on "programming" resulted
in "Internal Server Error".

~~~
evandena
I am new to programming, currently teaching myself Python. I have "Dive into
Python" and have done most of "Learn Python the Hard Way". I feel both of
these are not ideal for beginners. Maybe they would be better for programmers
new to Python.

I have found "Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science" by John
Zelle to be the best reference so far.

------
swGooF
Good Idea. I had troubles finding non-techy topics. I got nothing from: bikes,
cars, trains, animals, and snakes.

~~~
michaelfairley
Some of those topics are definitely in the site, but the search is only doing
exact match right now. I'm in the process of getting stemming and some fuzzy
matching turned on, so hopefully bikes will give you hits for bicycle in the
near future.

~~~
swGooF
Good Plan. Keep up the good work!

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llambda
Two for four: `Javascript` and `Haskell` gave me sensible (I'd say great)
recommendations, `Erlang` and `Neural Networks` were duds though.

Overall, the site looks great and certainly seems to function well, outside of
my two obscure queries. Congratulations on a project well done!

------
run4yourlives
I like the idea... searching for "economics" gave positive results, but "how
to start a business", not so much...

<http://bestintrobook.com/books/how+to+start+a+business>

~~~
godinaa
Maybe so, but if you reword your search:
<http://bestintrobook.com/books/business+startup>

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bborud
you seem to be missing entries for "auto maintainance", "goat herding", "cat
herding", "sheep herding" and "sex". however a search for "maintainance of
rare watches" turned up a bunch of books. the first hit was one on philosophy.

:-)

------
eLobato
Truly awesome work. Does it find the introductory book by googling it or
they're all introduced by hand?. The funny thing is that my gf ain't letting
me going on with my holiday project instead of helping me like yours haha

------
mariocesar
Awesome Idea! please tell your wife, if she'll allow me to I will do some
HTML/CSS work on the site for free! ... <http://twitpic.com/5lnysd>

Cheers!

~~~
michaelfairley
inline-block doesn't work too well on <= ie7, <= ff2, which is really annoying
because it's the best way to do that layout.

------
allbutlost
Really nice idea! Should save me trawling through amazon reviews to see if the
particular book I'm after is suitable for newcomers.

heads up: <http://bestintrobook.com/books/iphone+programming> gives me an
error, although <http://bestintrobook.com/books/iphone+development> works
fine.

------
ycomb-har
Nice idea. +1 for crowd-sourcing for other topics and ranking/rating multiple
books for a topic. It seems to include the author name in the search index
which seems like a bad idea. <http://bestintrobook.com/books/C>
<http://bestintrobook.com/books/phillips>

------
deepakjois
I like the approach taken in this thread :
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subj...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subject/)

One of the rules the poster imposed was for the participants to name the other
books they've read on the subject and explain why they thought their chosen
textbook was superior.

------
larjudge
I was randomly flicking through titles, just to see the scope of what you had
in your database, and one flicked past that looked interesting - but by this
time I had already hit "show another".

You may want to consider having a "previous" button there, but I completely
understand that may take away from your design. Great job though!

------
mike-cardwell
I know it's not massively important given the subject matter of the website,
but you should still sanitize your inputs:

[http://bestintrobook.com/books/%3C/title%3E%3Cscript%3Ealert...](http://bestintrobook.com/books/%3C/title%3E%3Cscript%3Ealert%28%27xss%27%29%3C/script%3E)

------
norswap
Apparently the best book on unix network programming is "learn python the hard
way". Take that Richard Stevens !

------
kenjackson
Great idea. The first search I tried seemed pretty excellent (biology), but
downhill after that. I did number theory, linear algebra, chemistry, topology,
compilers. Only linear algebra gave something that looked reasonable.

Build up the database some and you might have something really useful.

------
geekytenny
Great job getting it up and running. However i have a few suggestions:

1\. The color theme needs to come alive. The colors are all screaming at me.

2\. Dont just say internal error. Tell us what is going on 3\. notfound.htm
page is missing

Again i say, great job.

------
fecklessyouth
You might want to clarify the results. The best intro book for Javscript
<http://bestintrobook.com/books/javascript>

Begins with, "this is not for beginners." It's for already programmers.

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naba
I think this would be very useful to people who are new to a particular
subject and do not have other means of guidance. One way of building the
database would be to request users for inputs if there is no data for the
topic user is searching for.

------
nimrody
Voting is really required here.

There are many good StackOverflow (and other StackExchange sites) questions
listing good books on certain subjects.

Other than that - It's a good idea. The gap between most books and really good
ones is HUGE.

------
tedkalaw
I think it'd be really cool if I could see popular searches. Despite the fact
that the title of the page is "...for any topic", I had no idea whether it was
programming or what, though that may have been because my random book was K&R

------
allwein
I searched for "Wine making" and got results for:

    
    
      wine (appreciation)
    
      jewelry making
    
      creative writing
    
      whiskey
    
      the middle ages
    
      management
    
      web usability
    

Seems pretty hit or miss.

~~~
michaelfairley
The first hit for wine making is (and has been) a wine making book. Check
again.

------
Spines11
I searched for "cooking", and it returned the exact book I'm reading right
now.

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kmfrk
How were the candidates determined? I can imagine topics like Rails and Python
being fairly contentious.

It also needs a Django recommendation. Do you receive a notice, when the
queries return no results?

~~~
michaelfairley
Yes. I'm logging the searches and will add books for the missed topics. It
started off with 250 or so, which was a fair amount to hunt down, but it looks
like I have even more work to do.

~~~
afarrell
I would consider tapping Quora for this unless you have a rolodex full of
experts on such varied topics as carpentry, light infantry tactics, contra
dance, or conflict de-escalation.

~~~
Apocryphon
StackExchange!

------
keithvan
How is "best" intro book defined? I typed in "economics" and I got a book on
an introduction to Austrian economics. If the best economics textbook is one
praised by Ron Paul and Ayn Rand, count me out.

------
rubergly
Seems like a great concept for a site. I (as well as many here) am looking
forward to more comprehensive results on programming subjects.

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jcooper2
Seriously, this is an amazon affiliate site and even other wise has tons of
adsense.

I dont see an evangalist.. just an opportunist :)

~~~
camwest
Because making money for providing useful information is wrong and evil!

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panschk13
I use Internet explorer 6 (It's mandatory at work, don't blame me;-)) The
layout on the start page is a bit messed up there.

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libria
The best intro book to C++ is K&R, eh? =)

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ajays
These appear to be dead-tree books. It would be nice to have such a list with
freely downloadable books. Any pointers?

~~~
schme
This particular site could alternatively offer a link to the freely available
books (CC etc.) or at least notify about it. I don't know how the site works
so I've no idea if it's possible without checking every license by hand, but
it would be very, very awesome.

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binarymax
Looks great, but you might want to implement literal search strings. A search
for C# or C++ both return K&R

~~~
michaelfairley
Unfortunately, I'm at the whim of the hosted search solution I'm using
(IndexTank).

~~~
nachopg
Michael, I'm Ignacio, from IndexTank, we exchanged some emails. Come to our
website's live chat so we can think of a workaround for any problems you're
experiencing with our whims :)

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dansup
Your affiliate link is missing!

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duopixel
Wow, I searched for design and the recommended books are spot on! Congrats!

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koopajah
nothing returned for php and erlang (first tries for me)! Might be nice to
have a list of topics references and maybe possibility to recommend some on
topics not yet handled?

~~~
michaelfairley
There's a slightly hidden list of all the topics:
<http://bestintrobook.com/all>

I'm working on a suggest feature. For right now I'm logging the queries, so
I'll know what there's a demand for that I don't have.

~~~
lostmypw
Until then... :-)

My suggestions:

    
    
      - Erlang: Erlang & OTP in Action
      - (Common) Lisp: Practical Common Lisp
        - this one can also be read online for free[1]
    

Disclaimer: Haven't finished either of them but they've been great so far.

[1] <http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/>

~~~
ams6110
Erlang and OTP in Action is great for learning about OTP. It's not really the
best introduction to Erlang the language itself. I'd recommend _Erlang
Programming_ by Cesarini AND Thompson for that. _Programming Erlang_ by Joe
Armstrong is good as well.

------
aarghh
Seems to fail when you enter an empty string.

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jrvarela56
pretty cool and instant money maker with amazon's partner program

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natural219
This is a good idea, but have you thought about a crowdsourcing system? You
could fill a lot of holes pretty fast and get some community input on which
book is the _best_.

