O'Reilly Pocket References

Bought some O’Reilly Pocket References yesterday. Actually, I only wanted one, but then I saw that they had a "Buy 2, get a 3rd book free" offer.

I really only wanted a quick HTML reference, but seeing as the offer was there I had a quick look to see if any other pocket references would come in handy, and ended up picking the JavaScript and CSS references as well.

On proceeding to the checkout I saw that the prices were actually lower than the ones on the pages linked to above: $6.49 and $4.99. So getting one of them for free yielded a total of $11.48.

I can’t recommend the O’Reilly Pocket References highly enough. I have a worn, paper copy of the C reference. It’s never lead me astray. I also have a paper copy (somewhat less worn) of the C++ reference.

The publishing world is changing thanks to PDF. I still prefer printed books for cases where you’re going to have sustained reading sessions (on a bus, on a train, on the couch, in bed, wherever) but for reference works where you want to consult something quickly nothing beats PDF. Instant searchability. It’s interesting to compare the way I use my (printed) C pocket reference (straight to Index, then to page) compared with the way I’ve been using the (PDF) HTML reference (using the table of contents in the Preview drawer). The latter is a much, much better way of working. All this, and you’re not consuming any physical resources (paper).