Ebooks Partnering with Paper
My Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad X41 tablet PC should be here within two weeks, and I'm already buying ebooks for it. In fact, in chasing down a good tutorial on Ruby (and Rails, its application framework) I stumbled onto The Pragmatic Programmers, a small publisher who's quietly going after the ebook market precisely as I would: No DRM, but the customer's name is embedded in the PDF.
In the last couple of days (basically since Julian Bucknall gave me a quick thumbnail of why it was so good, last Thursday night) I've been furiously researching Rails, and yesterday I ordered Agile Web Development with Rails by Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson. I ordered it from the publisher as package that seemed like a reasonable deal: Buy the print book for $35, and get the ebook for $8 more. (The ebook alone costs $22.50.) The print book will be showing up some time this coming week, but I got the ebook five minutes later and I'm already well into it, even though I'm not fond of reading in front of my computer. (That's what big cushy leather chairs are for!)
My main problem with Ruby and Rails right now is that my Web hosting service doesn't support them. I've installed them on my server downstairs so I can learn the technology, but if I want to actually field an application I may have to find another hosting service, which I'd prefer not to do-Sectorlink has been very good, and moving domains and sites is a PITA first class. Still, at first blush I like it better than PHP, and I'll touch upon it as I learn it in coming months.
You might well ask, Why am I buying the print book at all? Or certainly, Why buy both? Like a lot of older people, I like print, and I have always kept a library of useful books. I read computer books on airplanes and other places of enforced idleness, and while I may try reading my X41 on airplanes, my intuition is that until we have good e-ink readers (and that time may be close upon us) paper will be the easier medium for long, uninterrupted periods of reading. And in this particular instance, I'm anxious to see how the two operate side by side. I intend to read the book on the X41 for awhile, and on paper for awhile. (That is, assuming I don't finish it before the X41 gets here-and if so, there are other titles on which I can do that test.) Comparing the two experiences of the same book will be interesting indeed. Watch this space.