Subject:
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Re: O'Reilly Mindstorms Book
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Fri, 19 Feb 1999 13:51:18 GMT
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Viewed:
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1137 times
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In lugnet.robotics, markt@lynx.bc.ca (Mark Tarrabain) writes:
> Wow. I can't believe Todd and I actually agree on something! Is thiis the
> sign of a new trend for me? :)
Well, hey -- this is books we're talkin' now, not legonomics. :)
> Seriously, though, I don't care for books bundled with CDROM's either for
> similar reasons that Todd mentioned. The existence of an out-of-date CDROM is
> not quite as offensive to me as it appears to be to Mr. Lehman, as I won't
> *NOT* buy a book that is interesting to me because it has a CD that I have no
> interest in (I can always make it into another coffee table coaster).
Oops, I didn't mean it to sound as though I found them offensive. Sorry about
the double-negative; to catch the intended meaning, you have to convert
"I haven't yet purchased one which wasn't weeks or months of out-of-date..."
into "I -have- purchased [one or more] which -was- weeks or months out-of-
date..."
> The biggest problem that I have with
> CDROM's coming bundled with books is that (for programming books particularly)
> it encourages laziness. People just use the code bundled on the CD as is, and
> by not typing it in themselves, often fail to fully understand how the software
> actually works. Now I'm not suggesting that everybody become a programmer and
> understand exactly how every application they ever use operates, but for
> programming books in particular, putting code on CD encourages people to not
> bother trying.
By that rationale, doesn't putting code on the web also encourage people to not
bother trying? And we know for sure that it'll be on the web regardless of
whether its on a CD.
One thing nice about not having to type something in, BTW, is that it saves you
time. You can spend that saved time reading more in the book or running more
examples or studying the examples closer. Not everyone's a touch-typist,
etiehr.
> Anyways, to bring myself back on topic here, I think that for a book like this
> a CD should still be included. There *ARE* people out there who don't have net
> access. And until LS120's become more popular, I think that stuff too big to
> fit onto a regular high density floppy cannot be assumed to be trivially
> transported between home and the nearest computer with internet access. (Let's
> not get into stuff that's too big to fit onto a single LS120 right now, 'kay?)
> I'll still buy the book, whether it comes with a CD or not.
Me too. Hey, we all get autographed copies, right?
> I'll probably even
> install the software on the CD that isn't older than what I already have. As
> the CD becomes outdated by newer stuff though, I'll probably just end up
> recycling the CD for use as a coffee cup coaster or something (actually, CD's
> work really well for coasters. You just glue some cork to one side of it so
> that it's better thermally insulated from the table surface and it works great).
Coffee cup coaster out of a CD? Cool, I'll hafta try that. I also need a bot
that knocks the coffee into my lap if I forget to take a sip every 300 seconds.
--Todd
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: O'Reilly Mindstorms Book
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| Wow. I can't believe Todd and I actually agree on something! Is thiis the sign of a new trend for me? :) Seriously, though, I don't care for books bundled with CDROM's either for similar reasons that Todd mentioned. The existence of an out-of-date (...) (26 years ago, 19-Feb-99, to lugnet.robotics)
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