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I'm the author of Python Crash Course, the best selling introductory Python book for some time now. Years ago, someone put out a book listing two authors: Mark

by japhyr 3y ago

I'm the author of Python Crash Course, the best selling introductory Python book for some time now. Years ago, someone put out a book listing two authors: Mark Matthes and Eric Lutz. That's just a simple juxtaposition of my name and Mark Lutz, the author of O'Reilly's Learning Python. The subtitle is obviously taken from my book's subtitle as well. I assume the text is an ML-generated mess, but I haven't bought a copy to verify that. I used to comment on reviews for books like these explaining what was happening, but Amazon turned off the ability to comment on reviews a long time ago. I've spoken with other tech authors, and almost all of us get emails from people new to programming who have bought these kinds of books. If you're an experienced programmer, you probably know how to recognize a legitimate technical book. But people who are just starting to learn their first language don't always know what to look for. This is squarely on Amazon; they have blocked most or all of the channels for people to directly call out bad products, and they have allowed fake reviews to flourish and drown out authentic reviews.

nektro 3y ago
i stopped frequenting the dev.to community because the average quality of articles just got so low it stopped being worth my time
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Conversely if you post something sophisticated there it will likely bomb. A bunch of emojis and explaining JS closures for the hundredth time. Does well!
- arrowsmith 3y ago
  dev.to is blocked on HN for this reason (try submitting a dev.to link; it won't appear under New.) There's an old thread where dang explains that it's blacklisted (along with many many other sites) due to the consistently poor article quality.
  - __anon-2023__ 3y ago
    > try submitting a dev.to link; it won't appear under New. I think you'll see it if you're logged in and have showdead turned on.
ocdtrekkie 3y ago
I think the best way to recognize a legitimate tech book is... visit a Barnes and Noble. If it's a publisher or series you can find printed on the shelf, books are legit. Unfortunately online market "platforms" are pretty much widely untrustworthy for any sort of informational purposes.
- failTide 3y ago
  also, just doing your research on any platform other than Amazon helps.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > If it's a publisher or series you can find printed on the shelf, books are legit. Not even that is a guarantee, there have been cases of rip-offs making it through a bunch of book-on-demand services. All "marketplaces" allowing third parties unlimited, unmonitored access to product listings suffer from that issue.
rmbyrro 3y ago
Why don't beginners start at Python.org, though? It's such a great resource to learn the language. - it's free, unlike books - always up-to-date, unlike even the best book after a few months - easy to choose: heck, there's only one official documentation! No chance of making a mistake here!
- rmbyrro 3y ago
  I guess book authors don't like my perspective...
- Armisael16 3y ago
  Are you suggesting people just go read the documentation like an encyclopedia? I don’t know a single person who got their start programming by doing that - just about everyone wants some sort of guide to help lead them in good directions.
  - skydhash 3y ago
    I did. On Windows, Python had (still have?) a good offline help. And it included a nice getting started tutorial. The only book I had was “The C Programming Language”. But they ignited my interest enough to start researching, and I landed on the "Site du Zero" (now OpenClassrooms) platform. The web was sparser, but better, in these days (2010).
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    That's more or less exactly how I learned to program. From books, with a few friends. Only after it got to a certain level and I started frequenting more places where we met other people working with computers some of which were professional programmers. I still have some of them. They've aged surprisingly well.
    - Dylan16807 3y ago
      > That's more or less exactly how I learned to program. From books What kind of books? The person you're replying to is arguing in favor of books, but saying that the documentation in particular is not a good one to start with.

by japhyr 3y ago

nektro 3y ago

i stopped frequenting the dev.to community because the average quality of articles just got so low it stopped being worth my time

quickthrower2 3y ago
Conversely if you post something sophisticated there it will likely bomb. A bunch of emojis and explaining JS closures for the hundredth time. Does well!
arrowsmith 3y ago
dev.to is blocked on HN for this reason (try submitting a dev.to link; it won't appear under New.) There's an old thread where dang explains that it's blacklisted (along with many many other sites) due to the consistently poor article quality.
- __anon-2023__ 3y ago
  > try submitting a dev.to link; it won't appear under New. I think you'll see it if you're logged in and have showdead turned on.

ocdtrekkie 3y ago

I think the best way to recognize a legitimate tech book is... visit a Barnes and Noble. If it's a publisher or series you can find printed on the shelf, books are legit. Unfortunately online market "platforms" are pretty much widely untrustworthy for any sort of informational purposes.

failTide 3y ago
also, just doing your research on any platform other than Amazon helps.
mschuster91 3y ago
> If it's a publisher or series you can find printed on the shelf, books are legit. Not even that is a guarantee, there have been cases of rip-offs making it through a bunch of book-on-demand services. All "marketplaces" allowing third parties unlimited, unmonitored access to product listings suffer from that issue.

rmbyrro 3y ago

Why don't beginners start at Python.org, though? It's such a great resource to learn the language. - it's free, unlike books - always up-to-date, unlike even the best book after a few months - easy to choose: heck, there's only one official documentation! No chance of making a mistake here!

rmbyrro 3y ago
I guess book authors don't like my perspective...
Armisael16 3y ago
Are you suggesting people just go read the documentation like an encyclopedia? I don’t know a single person who got their start programming by doing that - just about everyone wants some sort of guide to help lead them in good directions.
- skydhash 3y ago
  I did. On Windows, Python had (still have?) a good offline help. And it included a nice getting started tutorial. The only book I had was “The C Programming Language”. But they ignited my interest enough to start researching, and I landed on the "Site du Zero" (now OpenClassrooms) platform. The web was sparser, but better, in these days (2010).
- jacquesm 3y ago
  That's more or less exactly how I learned to program. From books, with a few friends. Only after it got to a certain level and I started frequenting more places where we met other people working with computers some of which were professional programmers. I still have some of them. They've aged surprisingly well.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > That's more or less exactly how I learned to program. From books What kind of books? The person you're replying to is arguing in favor of books, but saying that the documentation in particular is not a good one to start with.