I will keep the 1st editions, and most reference books.
I feel can toss everyone of my computer books. (Not one did I find well written, or worth keeping. If anyone decided to write a computer/programming book take out every unneeded word. Maybe take a technical writing course if you live near a good university?)
Interesting—I find I have a hard time reading technical books on my ebook reader. When I read fiction, it’s usually a linear process, making the reader ideal: read, swipe, repeat until done.
With technical books, I often need to jump to another section, which is so much slower and more painful than with dead trees. Code formatting also tends to be abysmal on my reader—although books are not the best for this either. Maybe I’m not using my device to the fullest?
I have never found a solution for this. At my desk, with multiple extra screens and a keyboard and mouse for searching and rapid navigation, a PDF is sometimes a decent enough alternative but for non-computer based hobbies as well as reading reference books more casually / when not actually needing to be at my computer I have been unable to find anything close to paper books.
My father got old, and had to downsize from a large house to a small flat, which didn't have room for all his books, so most of them went to charity shops. A year later, he advised me "Try not to get rid of your books; you'll regret it."
He's died now, I took over the flat, and moved from a family home into the same flat. I also had to shed a lot of books in the process. I ripped my large CD collection to a media server. I miss some of those books I got rid of; but I like this small flat, and I don't want to dedicate a small room to a library.
The first books I got rid of were computer books. They were all manuals for some obsolescent technology; like, I thought the "Rhino" Javascript book would be useful forever (um, no). I got rid of a few feet of books on Buddhism, and several more feet were books on Western philosophy from my undergraduate days. These were books that had been formative for me, but I was honestly never going to open them again.
So I don't really agree with my father's advice. If you regret ditching a book, you can just replace it.
I will keep the 1st editions, and most reference books.
I feel can toss everyone of my computer books. (Not one did I find well written, or worth keeping. If anyone decided to write a computer/programming book take out every unneeded word. Maybe take a technical writing course if you live near a good university?)
It's just hard to get rid of reference books.
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