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I thought I’d discarded these years ago, but here they are, in a box. And I’m glad I still have them. They’ll go back in the box for now, as I don’t have the space to set them up on shelves.
I pretty much read this book from cover to cover back in the day (this edition is from 2005) and I’m still surprised at the amount of raw information contained within.
I never did figure out Linux…
I spent hours writing my programs into an exercise book when I was in high school, because I only had access to GWBASIC at school, as our home computer had silly old DRDOS instead of MSDOS.
sh17picker69000420
A+... good God, I'm old.
Iwouldbenick
Headless Ubuntu server for all your home lab needs!
HufflePuffPuff
My high school offered a programming class in the late 90s. The language, PASCAL, which was defunct in the 80s. The teacher did teach us logic though.
VodkaReindeer
Me too. And hey now, 4% is not nothing https://youtu.be/ZTPrbAKmcdo?t=205
Zetor
I'm okay with replacing my stacks of book with google. I still have Design Patterns and There Is No Silver Bullet in storage somewhere, though.
in70x
I honestly still prefer to have physical textbooks for things I reference and use a lot. As much as I tried replacing with Kindle/Digital solutions. Being able to physically flip back and fourth and not needed a device still has a ton of utility…
arajad
Since Google's ability to answer my questions has grown progressively and steadily worse for the last decade and a half (unless I include site:reddit.com), I've begun to treat it as a last resort. If Reddit or Stack Exchange isn't in the first five results, the answer's likely to be useless.
Zetor
You are right. I've noticed that I have started to use "some api problem" site:theofficialguide.com more
Dlaw25
Technicolor Rainbow!
drhobotron
I simply cannot bring myself to get rid of any of my Addison Wesley, O'Reilly, or Prentice Hall books.
GermanGuy79
Love It. GW Basic was my first attempt to program when I was 14 in the mid 90's
Kittenman15
I've got the 21st edition of Scott Mueller ... just saying
InkyBlinkyPinkyAndClyde
I did all the programming for my computer engineering degree on paper, as I couldn't afford a computer. There were computer labs on campus, but I also couldn't afford to live near campus, and since it got dark around 5pm most of the school year, I didn't feel safe as a woman walking alone. So I'd do it all at home on paper, and then come in early enough before my class to type it in and make sure it ran. Which it always did, because I debugged it on paper too.
Gimickguy
Lol, my mcp id is from '95, done NT3.5 paper exams in '94.
alsweigart
Boss
NeverShaveYourDuck
That's so hardcore! You debgged it on cardware before you ran it on hardware.
Ritawho
Did most things on paper as well. Started programming when I was 12 on a timex(zx spectrum with a cartridge)
VodkaReindeer
To me the risk of getting attacked would be worth it to be able to write something on a computer instead of with a pencil. I hate writing with a pencil so much.
InkyBlinkyPinkyAndClyde
In my first year there was an active rapist in the area I had to walk through to get home. Police were warning women to stay out of the area after dark. I still had to go through it sometimes and it was terrifying.
mairusupawa
DrDOS was better, but MS killed it with the AARD code in MSDOS.
klaceo
MCSA and MCSE - two expired certs that have taken me pretty far in my career
nccomputermechanics4
#1 m'hoes do be understanding operating systems
Badsequence
OH man this takes me back to my early days starting out in IT support. I've been working in IT for almost 30 years now.
Matty3D
#2 I had this book. Had to buy it for college. Used it maybe twice and then it lived on a shelf until it went into the recycling.
Garbonzo00
You're missing the classic "DOS for Dummies".
BixbyConsequence
djangojazz
That's funny as you have LAMP stack book. Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP. That was all the rave in the early 2000s. It tried to learn PHP for a while but hated it. But it built things that Node and other frameworks could improve.
ConnectToReality
No Dietel & Dietel?
Lugh314159
The local charity shop by my place sells used books based on a percentage of their cover price (horrible idea). These computer books are VERY expensive. Their cover price is based on their value when they're new, obviously. When they're 10+ years out of date, they're basically worthless. I used to them up for a lark at a buck a piece.
The charity shop had a guide to Microsoft Office 2013 on sale for $20.
SometimesOthertimesAnytime
Some of those bring back memories!
Eiladar
I still have my MCSE for NT 4.0 tomes a round here somewhere.
badgesweedontneednostinkingbadges
The new scrolls! Mine were a bit older: "Introduction to FORTRAN-IV", "IBM JCL and Utilities" (took this course at BU while I was unemployed), "COBOL Programming", and "Introduction to Data Structures".
arajad
I could have used that copy of Server 2003 twenty years ago. Had to teach myself server maintenance from scratch, starting with SBS 2003. I never used GW-BASIC, but I still use QBasic (in a DOS emulator) when I want to do some quick calculations without spending an hour relearning Python syntax.
worldrecordstudios
What were those books with the hand-drawn animals on the covers?
NeverShaveYourDuck
I had the Rhinocerous book on JavaScript from O'Reilly. And it kicked ass!
Sangueffusor
excusemecomeagain
O'Reilly!
BoobJiggle
Thankfully Linux now (The large distros, and mint especially) are just about as easy to install and navigate and operate as Windows nowadays.
Can't even game on it, playing any steam or Windows game through a Vulcan translation library which only loses about 2% performance versus Windows.
And everything is an easy GUI now, most people will never need to open a terminal for anything
NinjaStrikeForce
Yeah, I'm down to one Windows PC out of two gaming PCs, SteamDeck, and my laptop.
Nikolai5
You should open a terminal though, its good to learn.
BoobJiggle
If they are tech-savvy and interested in getting into the nitty gritty, absolutely. But I was just saying that most people can run it as a main desktop OS and not miss anything from Windows with the exception of visual studio.
And I'm not even going to think about VS code, that thing's a fancy notepad, a piece of shit.
I have to VMware a win10 box *just* so I can use visual studio for c# development. All the IDEs for Linux are lacking in integration and debugablity imo
BoobJiggle
CAN* game on Linux **
Sorry for the typo!
WellWellWellLookWhoItIs
*Can* even game on it, I think you mean.
BoobJiggle
Yeah, my bad, typo
arajad
Cripes, even on Windows I leave three or four console windows open all the time.
BoobJiggle
When I have my win10 VM running, there's almost always a command prompt open, usually for shit like `ipconfig /flushdns` and `/registerdns` - and Visual studio dev environment to make things like git easier (I hate the VS interface for git)
arajad
I'm so glad I don't do any of this professionally any more. I haven't used /flushdns in years. Probably been way too long since I updated my hosts file, though.
DrLOAC
Who needed a search engine when you could buy a complete guide to the internet.
labtob
750 is a lot!
CuddleMonsterWithKnives
$30 value?! What a steal!!
rubix1138
#2 This was the book I bought for my first tech job in 1993!
DrFlukeHawkins
God damn I found an older edition of that computer book recently from the late 90s.
laDisparitionDesHeures
My students call it the late 1900s, but I'm sure they're fucking with me.
n3rdsquared
I have nothing against books, tech was moving so fast, still is, that the books would become obsolete within months of the books being released, mainly this is how feels with computer programming books, and by extension somewhat with other tch related books, with the exception of ansi C programming.
quzar
I don't know a C coder worth their salt that doesn't have their copy of K&R around. 'Modern C' though (available free https://inria.hal.science/hal-02383654v2 as pdf) is a great kind of update that helps make sense of integrating all the modern types and new functional patterns resulting from the intervening 35 years.
n3rdsquared
Yes the K&R book, I forgot the actual title but recall the "ansi C" red box on the cover.
quzar
"The C Programming Language Second Edition"
AyatollahBahloni
#3 You are in good company
CommunCreator
Source: https://xkcd.com/456
3Davideo
Linux has gotten inordinately easier over the years. Now it's just use one program to put the image on a thumb drive, boot from the thumb drive, then follow the simple instructions on screen.
PinkEater
LFS FTW
zombiejedediah
In fairness, while 25 years ago it took me a week to get RedHat to work with all peripherals on my partitioned Windows machine, the last time I tinkered with an install it was done in about an hour.
AyatollahBahloni
Actually, this is good to know. I began programming on a Univac 1108 in Fortran in 1969, and did all sorts of stuff on mainframes and minis throughout the '90s, only leaving the IT field when OOP really began to be a thing. The only thing that kept me from switching to Unix was the learning curve (as illustrated by the XKCD cartoon above.) If it's gotten much easier, I might be willing to dive in, even at the age of 74.
SuperGeniusPS
blubberingbastard
https://media1.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1NXM1MXN0NHdsYzJwZ3RzYm14ajAwdjdreHlqYzdrYzZvY3VycHVseCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/KeQ3dG4POE37DNAtVm/200w.webp
There's no place like ~
blubberingbastard
Unless your root... then be root
IceWeaselX
One of my college classmates had to do a report on Linus Torvalds, with full citations. When he turned it in, his teacher flipped to the back page to skim the sources.
"...Wait. Why is 'Linus Torvalds' listed as a source? He's the subject of the paper."
"Yeah. I called him. 'Hey, what's your birthday?'"
LT was a long time family friend who used to visit. My friend literally asked Linus himself for help if he ever had Linux issues he couldn't hash out.
0570
A Linux user, nay, the creator of Linux having friends?!
HamburgerTelephone
Hey, it happens sometimes! …not to me, but it still happens!