[Gllug] Good linux magazines?

[Ben Fitzgerald]

On Tue, Nov 09, 2004 at 10:46:22PM +0000, Rev Simon Rumble wrote:
> This one time, at band camp, Ben Fitzgerald wrote:
> 
> > I know you say most, but O'Reilly must be a very large player, and 
> > every book I've bought of theirs (and several I haven't!), have been 
> > great. Some others I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole (wrox), but 
> > that's just my preference.
> 
> I hate to criticize O'Reilly since they're the good guys but you 
> obviously never read their first Debian book (completely useless) or the 
> first edition of their introductory Linux book (even worse than 
> useless).

Didn't read those. I'm sure O'Reilly don't have a formula for books that
always hits the target. I did inherit "Learning Redhat Linux" and that's
not good. In my experience of their books the positive titles greatly
outnumber the not-so-good ones. I'm not talking in absolutes here,
simply pointing out there are good books out there.

> > Perhaps I've got you the wrong way round? Are you saying space costs
> > more on the web? Or that ideas have to be thought through before
> > publishing? Surely typesetting etc. makes the time from thought to
> > printed word much longer and more costly?
> 
> Print deadlines and having a book on the shelf count for a lot more than 
> accuracy or utility in the book publishing world.  O'Reilly have mostly 
> managed to avoid this, which is why they're still highly regarded.

I'm sure these factors are crucial to a book's success in such a
volatile subject area. That doesn't counter the fact that anyone can
write an article and have it score highly in google, even if their
article is boring or incorrect. The cost to the author may only be a
couple of hours of their time. The internet is great for this - I
suppose this is one small collective cost of ownership that we pay for
such a great invention! My original point was simply to say that there
are good books and online articles, but that the nature of the web means
you will get a lot of crap too.

Ben

ps despite my tree-hugging tendancies I do like to hold a book, and make
notes on paper!
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