>Hi George.
>
>Unfortunately, people tend to quantify things like this in the wrong way. They look at the cost, add in their time and don't realize that simply looking in a book's index on a topic, or spending a some time in a session can lead them into possibilities that wouldn't have occurred otherwise.
>
>An terribly short-signted POV < s >.

Hi Marcia,

Absolutely! Some books should be read cover-to-cover. Off the top of my head stuff like "Essential Techiques..." Kilo/MegaFox are different. The value doesn't come from reading them that way. I've gone through both, picking out things that I'm a bit "short on". In both cases, while I may not have used the code, they've given me ideas that I hadn't considered earlier.

For me, there's value in both types of books. You just have to learn what the intention is. I'm in the process of reading (cover-to-cover) "Code Complete". While I know (and agree with) 90+% of the material, it's value isn't in teaching me what I know. The value is in teaching me things I hadn't thought of.

I've an old story to relate here. During my early days at Shaw, I was working in UCSD Pascal. One fellow from the corporate IT department said to me, "That stuff doesn't work in the real world."

It's been my experience that people that say those kinds of things, don't know what they're talking about. This is because they don't understand the purpose of the design paradigm. It's based on "real" world situations.

I know I'm "preaching to the choir" here, but computer books are fundamentally about ideas, concepts and new technologies. Someone else's idea, someone else's concept, are invaluable if only if it causes the reader to re-examine their own.