Sometimes ya gotta go low tech

[erkishhorde]

I'm making decent progress on my MS project and it's time to jump into Visual Basic. So, I need a book to help guide me along the way. Internet sources have been decently useful but I like to have a book that I can flip through sometimes. An index where I can look up keywords and then flip to a page. I used to be a digital person. Paper? Nah, PDF. Index? Try Ctrl + F. I hate having to lug books around though, especially when I already have to move my laptop around to work on it already so PDFs don't take up any extra space.

So, in this digital age, with the abundance of online shops where you never have to leave the house to compare prices from a gazillion of sellers, it's still better to go out to an actual bookstore to look for educational books. One of the biggest benefits of this is that you get the option to flip through the pages and actually read the book that you are potentially going to buy. That way you can tell if the book presents information in a useful manner to you. The little excerpts from the online stores and the descriptions from the back of the book are never enough to tell if you will actually be able to use a technical book. They generally only tell you what information will be presented and give you no clue as to how the information will be presented. But many overlook the best benefits of going to the store to shop in person. You'll never run into a cute girl surfing the internet but you can if you actually get out and about and shop in person. 

[Monsterlover]

Sounds like you've answered your own question

now go buy yourself a girl book

[Scooter Montgomery]

Sure you can meet a cute girl online, so what if his name is Bill, he is 58, unemployed and still lives at home with his mom.

[duccarlos]

I'm making decent progress on my MS project and it's time to jump into Visual Basic. So, I need a book to help guide me along the way. Internet sources have been decently useful but I like to have a book that I can flip through sometimes. An index where I can look up keywords and then flip to a page. I used to be a digital person. Paper? Nah, PDF. Index? Try Ctrl + F. I hate having to lug books around though, especially when I already have to move my laptop around to work on it already so PDFs don't take up any extra space.

So, in this digital age, with the abundance of online shops where you never have to leave the house to compare prices from a gazillion of sellers, it's still better to go out to an actual bookstore to look for educational books. One of the biggest benefits of this is that you get the option to flip through the pages and actually read the book that you are potentially going to buy. That way you can tell if the book presents information in a useful manner to you. The little excerpts from the online stores and the descriptions from the back of the book are never enough to tell if you will actually be able to use a technical book. They generally only tell you what information will be presented and give you no clue as to how the information will be presented. But many overlook the best benefits of going to the store to shop in person. You'll never run into a cute girl surfing the internet but you can if you actually get out and about and shop in person. 

Why are you trying to learn VB? I'm done with my coding days, so I won't be caught dead in that section of the bookstore.

[Popeye the Sailor]

Why are you trying to learn VB? I'm done with my coding days, so I won't be caught dead in that section of the bookstore.

Well, neither would cute girls.

[freeclimbmtb]

On a side note (but not completely unrelated) at spring break one of my "buddies" used the line: "Dont worry, all 5 of us are eagle scouts" as a means of trying to convince the girls to take us home...

...I dont suggest it, but it might work better than VB...

[duccarlos]

There's nothing sexier than a guy trolling the tech section of the bookstore. That's where all the hotties are at, but not on the VB section. You gotta move to the Java books.

[zooom]

seems to me...if you want to go low tech and get girls in the book store...why not just use an old old old old laptop to club them over the head with and then drag them back to your car....think caveman with the club...then when they awaken..you can exclaim how you saved them from the rampant falling books that were tumbling all around her after she got clocked by this 450+ page hardback and you then dragged her outta there for her own safety...

[zarn02]

Nah, that doesn't really work as well as you'd..... I mean, what!? I've never done that!

[Drunken Monkey]

you can exclaim how you saved them from the rampant falling books that were tumbling all around her after she got clocked by this 450+ page hardback and you then dragged her outta there for her own safety...

Kudos for putting the 'sensual' back into 'non-consensual.'

Back on track, books are how I learned to program but these days I think google gets you information that's just as valuable about 1000 x faster. Plenty of good guides to doing "x" on the web these days.

[erkishhorde]

Well, neither would cute girls.

Haha, she was looking at LSAT books which was right next to it.

Why are you trying to learn VB? I'm done with my coding days, so I won't be caught dead in that section of the bookstore.

My MS project is to make a program that will design timber walls using all 3 methods so that the results can be compared. I've got a spreadsheet that will almost totally do it but the project is to make it a stand alone program so I need the VB.

[erkishhorde]

Kudos for putting the 'sensual' back into 'non-consensual.'

Back on track, books are how I learned to program but these days I think google gets you information that's just as valuable about 1000 x faster. Plenty of good guides to doing "x" on the web these days.

I've been having problems sorting out the useful information and the useless information. 

[duccarlos]

VB is the ghey

[Speeddog]

Do it in FORTRAN.

[erkishhorde]

Do it in FORTRAN.

I actually took a class in that. The first thing the teacher told us was that it was a dead language and used to be fulfill foreign language requirements. They've since stopped offering the class.

VB makes me feel like I'm working with Matlab again.