Hello JGO,
I was just wondering if anyone here has experienced using a java book on a kindle or kindle app, and I was wondering how it compares to the real thing. I have avoided downloading these types of books on my kindle because I thought it would be awkward but how has it been in your opinion? Thanks!
On a kindle e-ink device, programming books are typically not so good. Code examples wrap in funny ways, or sometimes are non-resizeable images and diagrams rarely fit.
On a tablet, it’s just dandy. The quality of any ebook always depends on the publisher and how much care they took in making the ebook version of course.
I prefer the Kindle version of tech books these days. I don’t own a kindle, but rather use a tablet or the Amazon Cloud Reader to view them. I have shelves full of books and just don’t have the space anymore.
Programming books are often thick heavy and expensive. My experience of kindle is on a nexus 7 and on the desktop version. I can’t speak for other countries but for the UK we don’t pay tax on e-books so they are a lot cheaper. Just the fact that I can take my library of books anywhere is brilliant. Some books diagrams are hard to see as they don’t always scale properly. The choice of books is sometimes more limited but more are being added all the time.
So long as you read the reviews of the books before buying and do your research, and if there is one try the sample before, you will be ok ;D
Thanks guys:) I think I’ll give a couple trials a go and see where it goes from there
They have been my only choice and essentially only reference while on naval underways.
If you grab the source code separately(or even print it out yourself) the worst part isn’t so bad. Code always ends up with small text, then it’s all indented like 4 tabs on both sides(instead of something sane like 4 tabs on the left and 1 on the right), causing some silly annoying word wrap to happen.
You also don’t have an easy way to just flip back and forth between an example and text on different pages. We’ve all been there where there’s this huge wall of code with 5 or 6 pages of explanation. This is really hard to do on an E-Book, but it does have the benefit of forcing to to read over a compiler which you should be doing anyways.
You don’t have access to your nifty muscle memory of where you “just know” that a piece of information you need is right there or very near by. Random searches are harder would be more accurate.
Paying Half or less for a book is very nice
Control-F everywhere.
Seeing sections that people frequently highlight is very nice.
Taking up less space than my gameboy container+games is priceless.
Like others have said, the experience varies from book to book, and depends entirely on how much care the publisher puts into converting the original text into a proper e-book. I would definitely recommend using a Kindle app over an e-ink Kindle if you have the option.
“Introduction to Java Programming” by Y. Daniel Liang is an example of a top-notch conversion, and quite a good textbook as well, in my opinion.