

Ask YC:  What is the most embarrassing technical book that you have ever owned? - amichail

I'm particularly interested in knowing about technical books from the 80s that look silly/ridiculous now.
======
SwellJoe
Hard to say...There've been so many...

I had this awesome book full of BASIC games for the Commodore 64. It ruled.

Mastering Amiga Assembler

Teach Yourself C in 24 Hours (all of the Teach Yourself * in 24 Hours books
are embarrassing, though not as embarrassing as "For Dummies" books).

Ooh...No, I've got it: I took the TCP/IP portion of the MCSE exams, and I had
a study guide for that. That's the most embarrassing (because it indicates I
took an MCSE exam...but, there were dark times in IT before most of you were
born...many servers ran this OS named Windows NT, instead of UNIX or Linux).

------
zaidf
In 1997, getting my first HTML lessons using an illustrated guide.

The moment when I typed something in notepad and it opened in IE I was running
all over the house screaming "IT WORKED!."

~~~
pg
I had a similar reaction. I think a lot of people did. One should never
underestimate the power of (a) making it easy for people to get a hello world
running, and (b) view->source.

~~~
dood
Thats one of the really interesting things about the OLPC - most of the
programs are written in Python, and it has a 'source' button on the keyboard,
so users can view and modify stuff
[[http://www.olpcnews.com/hardware/keyboard/children_view_sour...](http://www.olpcnews.com/hardware/keyboard/children_view_source.html)]

I had that same experience with HTML, I'm sure if I could've viewed source on
a load of decent Python programs I would've gone nuts for it as a kid. A hell
of an improvement to feeding a book full of BASIC into a C64. If the rest goes
to plan, there'll be a lot of handy hackers around in a few years.

------
mrevelle
Not from the 80s, but Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science".

------
herdrick
I'm going to say GoF. Flame me.

Also "Learn Java" (1996) and "Enterprise Java Beans" (2000).

------
noonespecial
"The Joy of Sex" HA!

------
fcardinaux
1978 Guerin's, Vaschalde's and Warusfel's "Le calculateur programmable de
poche" (in French, translated: "The Programmable Pocket Calculator"). A
translated excerpt: "... we can imagine that [in the future] programmable
calculators will be branched through the telephone network to central
computers that hold massive amounts of data. "

------
ratsbane
Anything with "Certification" and "Microsoft" in the title. It was a present.
I swear. IT WAS A GIFT, OKAY? I have elderly relatives. [sigh] On the other
hand, that really shouldn't count as a technical book.

Also, "The Road Ahead" by BillG. From my aunt.

------
mynameishere
[http://www.amazon.com/Hitchhikers-Guide-Vms-Unsupported-
Undo...](http://www.amazon.com/Hitchhikers-Guide-Vms-Unsupported-Undocumented-
Can-Go-Away-At-Any-Time-Feature/dp/1878956000)

------
cellis
VB.NET for Dummies. Maybe it was VB for Dummies...i can't remember, it was 4
years ago, and I threw it away, along with my Java, C++ and Technical Math
book (I regretted throwing the math book away).

------
comatose_kid
[http://www.mr-
atari.com/afbeeldingen/atariforceENboeken/easy...](http://www.mr-
atari.com/afbeeldingen/atariforceENboeken/easyguide600800blackadar.jpg)

------
henning
Teach Yourself Visual Basic 6.0 in 24 Hours.

I should make up some story about finding it in a dumpster or buying it for $2
at a garage sale or something, but whatever.

------
ochiba
Sybex HTML Complete. Worst book ever. Not worth the paper it's printed on.
Bought it when I was in elementary school though..

------
nostrademons
C for Dummies.

------
mullr
Data Binding in Windows Forms 2.0. The book is terrible, but the API is worse,
so...

------
RyanGWU82
Dating Design Patterns

------
corentin
Visual Basic 6.0 For Dummies (the french edition).

------
epe
Herb Schildt's "The Complete Reference: C++"

------
aristus
Turbo Pascal FTW

~~~
herdrick
Version 3 was great.

------
zach
Secrets of the 3D Game Programming Sages.

~~~
thomasswift
Did not plan on seeing that when I opened this, I have it too.... somewhere

------
davidppp
XML Web Services for ASP.NET

------
alaskamiller
Teach Yourself Windows CE Programming in 6 Hours.

