

Buy 1 get 1 sale at O'Reilly. What are some good startup or tech-related books? - jroes
http://oreilly.com/store/ebooks-complete.html

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sandal
My book, Ruby Best Practices is listed here, but you can download a free PDF
copy instead: <http://rubybestpractices.com>

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3pt14159
Sandal! Let me thank you ever so much for writing that amazing book! I learned
so much about Ruby, and just coding in general. Even the appendices were
great. Great balance of good examples and humor. Thanks!

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jamesbritt
I'm reading JavaScript: The Good Parts. Pretty good.

I also really like Make: Electronics. It's extremely well done, outstanding
layout and graphics, excellent content, if you want to get started hacking
hardware.

BTW, apparently this sale is only for e-books, not paper.

~~~
dcotter
I'm a big fan of JavaScript: The Good Parts, but it doesn't appear on the list
of books for sale.

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mjhoy
It isn't on the list, but the discount code still worked for me.
<http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517748/>

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okmjuhb
"Programming Collective Intelligence" is quite good. I like "The Ruby
Programming Langauge" if it's something you're interested in. "Learning
Python" is probably beneath you but it'd be a good gift for someone who wants
to learn programming. I've heard good things about "Real World Haskell" but
haven't read it.

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jamesbritt
Anyone interested in Haskell should get RWH. I forgot about it in my earlier
comment, but it's well worth the $ (though there are free versions).

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strlen
Programming Scala by Alex Payne and Dean Wampler. It's a great companion to
the Odersky/Venners book which is (in my view, which is far from unanimous)
better as a reference or a follow-up rather than as a tutorial.

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n8agrin
I think I just found this book online as well: <http://programming-
scala.labs.oreilly.com/>

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frio
Yes, there is a free copy (similar to Real World Haskell) online, which is one
of the reason I purchase O'Reilly books.

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checker659
I don't know if I'll just come off as an ass but have you tried Safari Books
(<http://my.safaribooksonline.com/>) yet? Monthly subscription fee is about 25
bucks and it gives you unlimited access to most books from o'reilly and some
from Apress as well. I think it's a much better alternative to the deal at
hand.

~~~
mishmash
My only recommendation wrt Safari Books is that you use the download tokens in
a timely manner. A while back I lost something like 20-30 of them because the
subscription lapsed, and unless they've changed it, once you lose them,
they're gone forever.

And that sucks IMHO.

~~~
dman
I agree about the download tokens. How they are handled is the only thing I
dont like about the safari service. You get five per month and unused tokens
last only for three months after which they disappear. So unless you keep
track and download some book chapters every month you are likely losing
tokens. That being said I think its a compliment to the service that this
minor point is my only gripe against it.

~~~
brown9-2
I believe different plans have different terms on the token amount/length - my
corporate plan gives me something like 50 tokens to use in a year.

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rryyan
From the HN thread about the O'Reilly ebook sale a couple months ago, I found
these suggestions helpful: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1368200>

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frio
I'm half-way through Real World Haskell. There's a free online version, but I
find it easier to read off actual paper than my shitty screens. It's a really
good book, and alongside, say, Learn Me a Haskell, is a good introduction to
get you started with the language.

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angusgr
I mean this in the nicest possible way, but: do you actually read tech books?
and which kinds?

Speaking for myself, I've found that I make nearly zero use of technical
reference books. K&R is about the only counterexample that I can think of. In
fact, for me, buying a book about some technology seems like it decreases the
chances of me actually learning it.

I read non-technology-specific non-reference books, but sadly a lot slower
than I buy.

Working in a second hand bookstore for most of my student years drilled home
to me that for most people, self included, buying books is many times easier
(and more frequent) than reading them.

~~~
wisty
It's like buying an expensive gym membership. The upfront cost will force you
to carry through ... even though it doesn't.

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petercooper
FWIW, I just noticed my book "Beginning Ruby" is on a $10 one day deal at
Apress: <http://www.apress.com/info/dailydeal> (for the next few hours only..)
See <http://beginningruby.org/> for more book specific info.

Apress also note on Twitter that they've totally randomized how the daily deal
works so you never know what book of theirs might turn up tomorrow. Seems a
good deal if you keep looking for books you might want to buy cheap.

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sriramk
<plug> My book 'Programming Windows Azure' :) </plug>

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shod
Anyone here read CouchDB: The Definitive Guide? I noticed it was written in
January; how much has changed with the 1.0 release earlier this month? Still a
worthwhile read?

~~~
mishmash
Bought the PDF and was really happy with it as a reference. Used it to write
YARCAL (yet another Ruby Couch adapter lib). Although that _was_ for 0.10.x
and I didn't follow Couch much after that - no idea what kind of changes have
occurred since then.

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davidu
I haven't had a useful O'Reilly book since the Perl books came out about a
decade ago.

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Aaronontheweb
I highly recommend the pocket reference guides - those things are huge time-
savers. I use the LINQ pocket guide constantly and the T-SQL pocket guide is
another one I use quite often.

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cludwin
High Performance MySQL is pure gold!

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andy
My favorite book is "How the Internet makes programming books mostly
irrelevant"

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mishmash
Not sure why you're getting downvoted.. your statement, although not true for
most theory pieces, does hold true for any kind of reference or API text.

