5 ms·

This is an interesting standpoint, but I'm not sure I entirely agree. Ebooks have made vast strides recently, but there's just something about leafing through a

by jbri 16y ago

This is an interesting standpoint, but I'm not sure I entirely agree. Ebooks have made vast strides recently, but there's just something about leafing through a book that they just can't seem to match. Perhaps it's the nostalgia talking, but reading a novel on a Kindle just seems a whole lot more sterile than an actual paperback. Even for reference materials, ebooks still seem like the bastard child of a reference textbook and a proper hyperlinked manual.

louismg 16y ago
The argument could similarly be made for watching feature films on a TV set with surround sound versus a theater. Ebooks aren't as beautiful (yet) as their hardback cousins, but they are instant, portable, and greener to boot!
- pstack 16y ago
  Also, you don't have to worry about your pages becoming dog-eared. Or getting finger-grease or smudges on them. Or spines being worn or bent. If you grew up a book nerd, just thinking about these things happening to a physical book can make you squirm. With an eBook, the most you need is a cloth to wipe your reader display! Also, there's definitely something to be said not only for carrying your book around on a light device, but carrying up to thousands of them around on a single light device. (Though, on the other hand, how often are you going to need to go back and read most of your non-reference books after you've finished them?).
  - hammerdr 16y ago
    Oddly enough, my non-reference books have become reference books because of their ease of access. For example, I was once trying to explain how a simple shift in perspective can lead to radical changes in behavior. Pulled out Ender's Game and a blurb of "the gate is down" as a 'concrete' example. As a book nerd, you often relate to books in response to certain situations. Instead of summarizing, we can now quickly access the eloquent prose of a gifted author that had time to express herself :)
  - mirkules 16y ago
    Interestingly, I find old books charming, especially ones with signs of wear and age. Kind of like a sturdy old table with nicks and bruises or a skillet with scrapes and scratches. I think eBooks are fine for "on-the-go," but hard copies certainly have a place on my bookshelf. In time, hard copies will become a niche product, one you use while sitting in your easy chair on a cold winter night. Everyone thought the radio will die with the advent of TV, but it just found a niche (nobody listens to the radio in their house, but they do in their car). As a side note, the OP said that he prefers reference books as hard copy books. When I think of reference books though, I think searchable content, which means I want my references to be in eBook format.
    - erikpukinskis 16y ago
      The radio/TV comparison is a little off. Radio is a fundamentally different experience than TV: it doesn't require sight. So that allows it to occupy it's rather substantial niche. Paper books still have some interface advantages over ebooks (as several people have described in this thread) but they'll go away as people build proper, well designed ebook readers. When that happens, all books will have going for them is nostalgia and a pleasant physical experience that can't be replicated digitally. I think a much more apt comparison is records, which don't provide a fundamentally different sonic experience, but do have nostalgia and physicality. So I think a handful of book lovers will still have collections, and visit the bookstore down the street, but like record players, and unlike radios, I think the vast majority of the population won't have any.
  - rmc 16y ago
    there's definitely something to be said not only for carrying your book around on a light device, but carrying up to thousands of them around on a single light device. Definitly. There's something exhilerating about bringing all your books with you. There are practical advantages aswell. I'm going on a 3 week holiday to australia soon. Previously I'd have to deciede what books I want to bring with me (since I couldn't take them all). Now I don't have to think about it. I just take my kindle and I know I have all my books.
riffraff 16y ago
I'm afraid it's the nostalgia talking, and we are dinosaurs. I do find interesting that very little people feel attached to tape/VHS/CDROM/DVDs though, while there are plenty who will swear that books in dead tree form are better than digital media. Then again, I don't know how to write a love note on the front page of ebooks I'm giving as gift, and they are still not bathtub-compliant :)
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  Not yet it isn't. Most of the books I own are bigger than the pocket-paperback size the Kindle and competitors use. When there's a magazine-size screen with slightly faster switching, then I'll jump on it. I also find navigating a book-length document on a laptop or something quite tedious. When I'm reading a complex book (where I often want to refer to the index, endnotes, or photographs) I will often have several fingers folded in at the relevant pages and can jump around quite quickly.
  - dman 16y ago
    Agree with everything you said but Book index quality has been going down pretty sharply off late. For some tech books I read recently the index was basically the function calls from the code samples and the Section headings.
    - anigbrowl 16y ago
      It's not limited to programming books, more's the pity.
- jbri 16y ago
  I think the difference there is that all of those are just storage devices - you can't just look at a DVD and see the movie, you already need a playback device in order to watch it. Given that, playing it back on the same device without having any external storage media is basically just cutting out the middleman. Introducing a playback device (such as going from book -> Kindle + ebook) is quite different, I think.
- 16y ago
rmc 16y ago
I recently got a Kindle and I'm convinced. It's the future. I'm reading much much books. Reading on a Kindle is superiour to reading a dead tree.
Tyrannosaurs 16y ago
I used to think this until I got a Kindle - I was almost determined that it wouldn't be as good as paper - but I now find it infuriating when I can't get something as an eBook. For novels the difference (for me at least) is that the Kindle makes it easier to focus on actually reading. I was surprised by this but turning a page is a small nudge of the thumb and your focus remains on the text, the device is light enough that holding it in the same position for an extended period or getting comfortable in bed or in a chair is far easier than for a book (even a paperback - and the difference between the Kindle and a hardback or trade paperback isn't even funny). Small barriers that you weren't even really aware of that are either taken away or noticeably reduced. Of course there's all the additional stuff - buying books instantly nearly anywhere, carrying a whole library in your pocket and so on - but they turn out to be bells and whistles. The real difference is that it's just a better device for consuming text. For reference books (at least large ones) the Kindle isn't there yet (layout, searching, colour and a few other key things) but without having hands on experience I can see the iPad could well remove most of those issues at which point searching and electronic notes, combined with reduced bulk (the iPad is heavy but not next to a 500 page programming book) likely give it an edge over paper.

by jbri 16y ago

louismg 16y ago

The argument could similarly be made for watching feature films on a TV set with surround sound versus a theater. Ebooks aren't as beautiful (yet) as their hardback cousins, but they are instant, portable, and greener to boot!

pstack 16y ago
Also, you don't have to worry about your pages becoming dog-eared. Or getting finger-grease or smudges on them. Or spines being worn or bent. If you grew up a book nerd, just thinking about these things happening to a physical book can make you squirm. With an eBook, the most you need is a cloth to wipe your reader display! Also, there's definitely something to be said not only for carrying your book around on a light device, but carrying up to thousands of them around on a single light device. (Though, on the other hand, how often are you going to need to go back and read most of your non-reference books after you've finished them?).
- hammerdr 16y ago
  Oddly enough, my non-reference books have become reference books because of their ease of access. For example, I was once trying to explain how a simple shift in perspective can lead to radical changes in behavior. Pulled out Ender's Game and a blurb of "the gate is down" as a 'concrete' example. As a book nerd, you often relate to books in response to certain situations. Instead of summarizing, we can now quickly access the eloquent prose of a gifted author that had time to express herself :)
- mirkules 16y ago
  Interestingly, I find old books charming, especially ones with signs of wear and age. Kind of like a sturdy old table with nicks and bruises or a skillet with scrapes and scratches. I think eBooks are fine for "on-the-go," but hard copies certainly have a place on my bookshelf. In time, hard copies will become a niche product, one you use while sitting in your easy chair on a cold winter night. Everyone thought the radio will die with the advent of TV, but it just found a niche (nobody listens to the radio in their house, but they do in their car). As a side note, the OP said that he prefers reference books as hard copy books. When I think of reference books though, I think searchable content, which means I want my references to be in eBook format.
  - erikpukinskis 16y ago
    The radio/TV comparison is a little off. Radio is a fundamentally different experience than TV: it doesn't require sight. So that allows it to occupy it's rather substantial niche. Paper books still have some interface advantages over ebooks (as several people have described in this thread) but they'll go away as people build proper, well designed ebook readers. When that happens, all books will have going for them is nostalgia and a pleasant physical experience that can't be replicated digitally. I think a much more apt comparison is records, which don't provide a fundamentally different sonic experience, but do have nostalgia and physicality. So I think a handful of book lovers will still have collections, and visit the bookstore down the street, but like record players, and unlike radios, I think the vast majority of the population won't have any.
- rmc 16y ago
  there's definitely something to be said not only for carrying your book around on a light device, but carrying up to thousands of them around on a single light device. Definitly. There's something exhilerating about bringing all your books with you. There are practical advantages aswell. I'm going on a 3 week holiday to australia soon. Previously I'd have to deciede what books I want to bring with me (since I couldn't take them all). Now I don't have to think about it. I just take my kindle and I know I have all my books.

riffraff 16y ago

I'm afraid it's the nostalgia talking, and we are dinosaurs. I do find interesting that very little people feel attached to tape/VHS/CDROM/DVDs though, while there are plenty who will swear that books in dead tree form are better than digital media. Then again, I don't know how to write a love note on the front page of ebooks I'm giving as gift, and they are still not bathtub-compliant :)

anigbrowl 16y ago
Not yet it isn't. Most of the books I own are bigger than the pocket-paperback size the Kindle and competitors use. When there's a magazine-size screen with slightly faster switching, then I'll jump on it. I also find navigating a book-length document on a laptop or something quite tedious. When I'm reading a complex book (where I often want to refer to the index, endnotes, or photographs) I will often have several fingers folded in at the relevant pages and can jump around quite quickly.
- dman 16y ago
  Agree with everything you said but Book index quality has been going down pretty sharply off late. For some tech books I read recently the index was basically the function calls from the code samples and the Section headings.
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    It's not limited to programming books, more's the pity.
jbri 16y ago
I think the difference there is that all of those are just storage devices - you can't just look at a DVD and see the movie, you already need a playback device in order to watch it. Given that, playing it back on the same device without having any external storage media is basically just cutting out the middleman. Introducing a playback device (such as going from book -> Kindle + ebook) is quite different, I think.
16y ago

rmc 16y ago

I recently got a Kindle and I'm convinced. It's the future. I'm reading much much books. Reading on a Kindle is superiour to reading a dead tree.

Tyrannosaurs 16y ago

I used to think this until I got a Kindle - I was almost determined that it wouldn't be as good as paper - but I now find it infuriating when I can't get something as an eBook. For novels the difference (for me at least) is that the Kindle makes it easier to focus on actually reading. I was surprised by this but turning a page is a small nudge of the thumb and your focus remains on the text, the device is light enough that holding it in the same position for an extended period or getting comfortable in bed or in a chair is far easier than for a book (even a paperback - and the difference between the Kindle and a hardback or trade paperback isn't even funny). Small barriers that you weren't even really aware of that are either taken away or noticeably reduced. Of course there's all the additional stuff - buying books instantly nearly anywhere, carrying a whole library in your pocket and so on - but they turn out to be bells and whistles. The real difference is that it's just a better device for consuming text. For reference books (at least large ones) the Kindle isn't there yet (layout, searching, colour and a few other key things) but without having hands on experience I can see the iPad could well remove most of those issues at which point searching and electronic notes, combined with reduced bulk (the iPad is heavy but not next to a 500 page programming book) likely give it an edge over paper.