WFH rejig

[ian]

I'm now worried that printed catalogues no longer exist and thusly my glorious attempt at rendering my workspace in a catalogue-stylee is lost on the younger amongst you. It'll all be squinting and clicking on thumbnails. I, for one, certainly enjoying taking a 'catalogue pose.' Hand on hip, gaze into the distance. Chinos available in blush pink, hellfire red, and oopsy brown. £40. Shoes, model's own.

In the old days, you could go blind in the tried-and-tested traditional way. These days it's from squinting at a screen.

[Jurek]

I'm now worried that printed catalogues no longer exist and thusly my glorious attempt at rendering my workspace in a catalogue-stylee is lost on the younger amongst you. It'll all be squinting and clicking on thumbnails. I, for one, certainly enjoying taking a 'catalogue pose.' Hand on hip, gaze into the distance. Chinos available in blush pink, hellfire red, and oopsy brown. £40. Shoes, model's own.

In the old days, you could go blind in the tried-and-tested traditional way. These days it's from squinting at a screen.

Jane & Notsototalnewbie OTP have form for that, I do believe.

[Genosse Brymbo]

Possibly controversial suggestion - but why have any physical books at all?
...

Physical books can reveal more than one might wish to admit...

...

...

That JavaScript book looks worryingly well-used.

[Jaded]

Disappointed no one else has a Cat Docking Station!

quadruple points for feline content

Missed the opportunity to get a bit of recursive cat action going though!

She moves fast 

[Ben T]

That JavaScript book looks worryingly well-used.

Old hat though now, typescripts where its at now 

[davelodwig]

Possibly controversial suggestion - but why have any physical books at all?
...

Because ...
a) They don't need batteries.
b) I can scribble notes / code fragments on them as I read through which improves / reinforces my understanding of the material being presented.
c) Physical bookmarks, i.e. scraps of paper, are easier to deal with than electronic ones.
d) I find it easier to read dead tree editions because I can flip back and forth.

Having said that, tech. books  do go out of date frighteningly fast and if you're comfortable with PDF et al it's no skin off my nose. 

Coincidentally, I have, in the last week, put nearly all my C, C++ and early version C# manuals in the paper recycling box.  The Java & Android books may be joining them, although I am currently undecided about that.  One of the C books was over 30 years old!

Where I'm working currently we use books as we don't have internet access in the building, so it's the only way. Oh the joy of air gapped networks, when you really do have to know your craft not just copy from stack overflow.

[FifeingEejit]

I have a worrying number of those books on my bookcase.. although most are scheduled to go to music magpie who were willing to give me 4 quid for Unix networking.. 

I'd like to be making more money with the left hand side of the bookcase but the right hand side still dominates (and the rails/mysql/javashit books were just for a side project that didn't go anywhere).

In better news the USB-C to DP cable ordered from Amazon turned up today so I am back to dual displays.

Also ordering the Flexispot EC1 desk tonight hopefully. (If I can get my other work out of the way first.)

Possibly controversial suggestion - but why have any physical books at all?
Why not just convert get kindle/online versions?
They just take up space.

I think the last book I threw away was on VB6... I haven't needed it since I bought proper monitor risers in about 2006.

Because Kindle and PDF are abominations only suitable for brief reading before sending the reader into a 5 day headache.
Although that may just be me

Oh yes and you can't load a kindle up with mini-post it notes in the same way you can a real page flicking book (see also judgement of how long a chapter is)

The technical books I've bought recently have been 2nd hand and on specific subjects that you just can't find on stackoverflow; finding out how to actually do generic stuff like remember if the string concatenation is done with +, & or a static function call, well there's stackoverflow. A decent description of what JavaEE is without getting into an argument about Spring or even someone who thinks you really really should be doing Microservices?
You'll also probably end up in an argument with some knowitall who thinks every IT project is as inconsequential as a website, and not potential killing sprees.

[pcolbeck]

Greenbank - much respect for someone who has both volumes of "TCP/IP illustrated". Us network types usually only have Vol 1. Mind you we have Radia Perlman's "Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches" instead of Vol 2.

[Nuncio]

I, for one, certainly enjoying taking a 'catalogue pose.'

Me too, as much as the next man.

[ian]

I'm now worried that printed catalogues no longer exist and thusly my glorious attempt at rendering my workspace in a catalogue-stylee is lost on the younger amongst you. It'll all be squinting and clicking on thumbnails. I, for one, certainly enjoying taking a 'catalogue pose.' Hand on hip, gaze into the distance. Chinos available in blush pink, hellfire red, and oopsy brown. £40. Shoes, model's own.

In the old days, you could go blind in the tried-and-tested traditional way. These days it's from squinting at a screen.

Jane & Notsototalnewbie OTP have form for that, I do believe.

I'm glad you bolded that section, I don't want to think what it would take to make them go blind.

[Greenbank]

That JavaScript book looks worryingly well-used.

Luckily not by me. I buy most of my tech books second hand. I think I've looked at the JS book for about 15 minutes in total.

Greenbank - much respect for someone who has both volumes of "TCP/IP illustrated". Us network types usually only have Vol 1. Mind you we have Radia Perlman's "Interconnections: Bridges, Routers, Switches" instead of Vol 2.

My copies of K&R and box set of TAOCP are both in the office. I shall retrieve them at some point.

I seem to have lost my copy of Fred Halsall which I bought for Uni in 1994. Can get one for under £5 from eBay so I may do that.

Thinking about it that also means I've lost a few of my signed copies from various university lecturers. (Discrete Mathematics by Mike Piff, and at least one by Prof Noel Sharkey [yes, that one off Robot Wars] as he was my dissertation supervisor for a bit before I switched topics and moved to another lecturer.)

[Cudzoziemiec]

Possibly controversial suggestion - but why have any physical books at all?
...

Physical books can reveal more than one might wish to admit...

...

...

That JavaScript book looks worryingly well-used.

"Ruby on Rails" does sound rather NSFW.

[Feanor]

I, for one, certainly enjoying taking a 'catalogue pose.'

Me too, as much as the next man.

Ah, this is calling out for a thread in the photos board ( behind spoiler tags if necessary! )

Junior ( a PSO in Edinburgh ) had a jacket delivered to here, and wanted to see what it looked like.
I did adopt the underwear-model gaze-into-the-middle-distance pose.
But I kept my breeks on!

[ian]

One of the sadder things of my life is knowing there will never be a sequel Ruby off the Rails.

[FifeingEejit]

One of the sadder things of my life is knowing there will never a sequel Ruby off the Rails.

Thought that was what happened to it's bandwagon

[Cudzoziemiec]

One of the sadder things of my life is knowing there will never a sequel Ruby off the Rails.

Oh yes there will!
https://www.instagram.com/ruby.off.the.rails/?hl=en

[quixoticgeek]

This is it, for me.
If I want to know how to do something, I want to know the current best way of doing it, not the way of doing it when the book was written.
For instance I bet if you look in your java book there's nothing on streams, although they've been around for a while now.

The best example was when I was at uni in about 1999 and I had some revision to do on something called "manchester carry chains", something to do with electronics.
I looked at the book and could find nothing about them. On firing up netscape navigator in the uni library I found they were only invented in 1995, and the book predated them.

And yet the C book I goto most often dates from 1978...

J

[FifeingEejit]

This is it, for me.
If I want to know how to do something, I want to know the current best way of doing it, not the way of doing it when the book was written.
For instance I bet if you look in your java book there's nothing on streams, although they've been around for a while now.

The best example was when I was at uni in about 1999 and I had some revision to do on something called "manchester carry chains", something to do with electronics.
I looked at the book and could find nothing about them. On firing up netscape navigator in the uni library I found they were only invented in 1995, and the book predated them.

And yet the C book I goto most often dates from 1978...

J

A mate was doing a Masters last year, I thought I'd be able to help him with C++ when he asked.
It looks nothing like what I remember.

[quixoticgeek]

A mate was doing a Masters last year, I thought I'd be able to help him with C++ when he asked.
It looks nothing like what I remember.

I got asked by a friend if I would mentor a friend of hers who was doing a CS degree and was struggling with one module. Sure I said.

It taught me *A LOT*. Not least it taught me that the way I was taught to interpret pointers doesn't work if you didn't grow up in either the UK, Ireland, Aus, NZ, or Japan... But, the only thing in modern C that is not in my original K&R is enum's, and that is in the more modern release of the book.

I have realised the only language I am confident in saying I know these days is C. Despite having been paid as in the past to program in Java and FORTRAN, the former has changed so much, I can't claim to know it anymore. I don't think code I wrote 10 years ago would even compile these days... As for the FORTRAN, sure I can do it, but noone is willing to pay me the hourly rate I'm asking for to do it...

I like C...

J

[Ben T]

This is it, for me.
If I want to know how to do something, I want to know the current best way of doing it, not the way of doing it when the book was written.
For instance I bet if you look in your java book there's nothing on streams, although they've been around for a while now.

The best example was when I was at uni in about 1999 and I had some revision to do on something called "manchester carry chains", something to do with electronics.
I looked at the book and could find nothing about them. On firing up netscape navigator in the uni library I found they were only invented in 1995, and the book predated them.

And yet the C book I goto most often dates from 1978...

J

A mate was doing a Masters last year, I thought I'd be able to help him with C++ when he asked.
It looks nothing like what I remember.

Oh yeah it's got lambdas and all sorts nowadays. Still have to look up what they look like to remember how to write them though

[Mr Larrington]

Just remember, kids, if you can't do it in FORTRAN it's probably not worth doing at all.

<g,d&r>

[Greenbank]

I like C...

I did one year of AoC (just bumped the thread: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=94710.0 - not long to go) in C. Makes you appreciate how some of the languages with STLs or just inbuilt structures like hashmaps/dictionaries/etc can be much quicker to program in. (I'm much faster doing AoC stuff in perl, but I mostly write C in perl, I never bother with classes or anything else OO.)

I've been a C developer for 20+ years now (on a very successful suite) but I can poke/prod/maintain Java/C++/Ruby if required, just don't make me create anything new in those languages. I've long since forgotten the Prolog/Occam/Modula-2/etc I once knew at some points. Picking up more and more python as our test suite and a lot of build/infrastructure stuff is python.

[citoyen]

Languages are supposed to be my strong suit. Wish I'd taken more interest in computer languages at school, rather than just French and German... (Also really wish I'd done A-level maths.)

I taught myself a bit of PHP/MySQL some years ago - enough to run a database-driven website. Started dabbling in a very amateurish way in Ruby on Rails (it was still very new at the time) but quickly ran up against the limits of my ability. Haven't done anything like that for several years though. Feels like I've missed the boat a bit and I'm quite envious when I read what all you lot are capable of.

I've never even really got to grips with the concept of OOP.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

Just remember, kids, if you can't do it in FORTRAN it's probably not worth doing at all.

<g,d&r>

Real men don't eat quiche.

[ian]

Languages are supposed to be my strong suit. Wish I'd taken more interest in computer languages at school, rather than just French and German... (Also really wish I'd done A-level maths.)

I taught myself a bit of PHP/MySQL some years ago - enough to run a database-driven website. Started dabbling in a very amateurish way in Ruby on Rails (it was still very new at the time) but quickly ran up against the limits of my ability. Haven't done anything like that for several years though. Feels like I've missed the boat a bit and I'm quite envious when I read what all you lot are capable of.

I've never even really got to grips with the concept of OOP.

I did learn some Python a year-or-back, tbh, my brain mostly got bored and wandered off to look at squirrels. It didn't seem terribly difficult in principle but you need the kind of structured mind that I evidently don't have (and never did). Also a lot of patience, to be endlessly tweaking and changing things and seeing what the output is. I need instant gratification and I need it now.