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in reply to Re: (OT) I prefer to do my learning with: dead trees or flying electrons?
in thread (OT) I prefer to do my learning with: dead trees or flying electrons?

Now, once e-books are a reality

What exactly are you looking for? If you're talking about being able to download pdf or any other simple, single file of the book you will have two choices:

  1. Restricted computing (aka DRM)
  2. An indefinate wait for some silly company to do it and go broke.

If you're just looking for reasonable accessibility, have a look at Safari. It's an awesome service in terms of price, selection, and nifty little features like code searches.

  • Comment on Re: Re: (OT) I prefer to do my learning with: dead trees or flying electrons?

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Re: Re: Re: (OT) I prefer to do my learning with: dead trees or flying electrons?
by hardburn (Abbot) on Sep 23, 2003 at 18:28 UTC

    Personally, I think e-books will be practical when these requirements are met:

    1. The reader isn't bulky.
    2. Random access is easy.

    #1 is probably doable within the next few years. LCD screens are being made from modified ink jet printers, so we can expect readers to become easy to fold up, stuff in your pocket, etc. Things we can't do with laptops, tablet computers, and PDAs (PDAs come close, but don't go quite far enough).

    #2 might be asking the impossible, but I still hold hope that someone will do something clever. By random access, I mean that I can open a book to the general area I know a subject is at, having read over the book before and need to look up the specifics. Hyperlinks are a good attempt at this, but aren't quite enough.

    ----
    I wanted to explore how Perl's closures can be manipulated, and ended up creating an object system by accident.
    -- Schemer

    Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated

[reply]
      Personally, I think e-books will be practical when these requirements are met:
      1. The reader isn't bulky.
      2. Random access is easy.

      1. I read Safari regularly on my Zaurus SL-5500. It is a hell of a lot less bulky than 500 pages of paper. ;)
      2. I like the ability to bookmark multiple pages and then access them like a TOC. I feel having a TOC, topic index, "goto page", and search beats your version of random access.

      We use books the way we do because their form makes it convenient to do so. Using an electronic device (assuming the design is tolerable and these features exist) is a question of rehabituating yourself. For some reason, people don't like the unfamiliar. :)

      --
      Allolex

[reply]

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