Most boring technical / text book you still own? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: TheWelly888
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2011, 06:54:54 pm
content: Us nerds usually have a high boredom threshold but sometimes each one of us come across a book that is so boring we can't learn anything from it!An example is"Software Engineering" by Ian Somerville, Third Edition which I bought many years ago when I was a student at Sheffield. Sadly it turned out to be useless because it was badly written! Too much jargon with no definitions along the way and full of examples which are too obscure!An example paragraph from page 93 of that book ( and it's one of the clearest paragraphs! )QuoteExcellent therapy for insomnia!which is why I still own it!Any one else still own a very boring book?( By the way I used the spell checker before posting and I liked two of the suggestions to correct the author's surname! )

author: ngkee22
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2011, 07:12:19 pm
content: I had a Verilog book that was required for a class in college. Paid I think over $100 for it. It was full of mistakes, you never knew if what you were reading was right or not. I think every page had a mistake, but the publisher wouldn't do anything about it, just released another book for another $100.

author: A-sic Enginerd
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2011, 07:27:51 pm
content: Mindshare book on USB.In general, I find Mindshare books pretty useful. They've been very helpful in making sense of various standards I've had to deal with. My biggest issue with this one is not so much Mindshare, but more on USB. Anyone that's ever looked under the hood of USB will understand what I'm talking about. Has you constantly shaking your head and saying "what were they thinking!?!"I'm still pretty amazed at just how well USB has managed to work (finally) on so many products. Talk about being able to make chicken soup from chicken ......errrr........dung.

author: RayJones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2011, 07:48:36 pm
content: Thankfully I do not own it, I borrowed it from the Library.It too was a book on software engineering.I cannot recall the title as it put me to sleep very quickly, but it lured me in on false pretenses with it's title.Perhaps that's why IT types think they rule the world - they have the ability to withstand the most utter boring mind numbing text books in the world.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2011, 10:03:00 pm
content: Buy a movie theater ticket if you want to be entertained.Boring is not a criteria describing the usefulness of a book and not one describing if you can learn something from it or not.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2011, 01:23:34 am
content: I generally find Technical books exciting & stimulating!Seriously,though,what bugs me is when the author has a weak spot in his knowledge of a particular point& glosses over that part.Of course,if you are examined on that part,you have no idea,unless you have looked it up elsewhere .I found that it was a good idea to have several other books to cross check on anything that didn't make sensein the set book for the course.Searching through multiple books is boring in the extreme!VK6ZGO

author: Zad
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2011, 03:23:46 am
content: Quote from: TheWelly888 on June 07, 2011, 06:54:54 pmI have this exact same book! I don't think I remember a single thing in it. It is on my bookshelf next to "Portable Modula-2 Programming" which the lecturers thought (for a few months) was going to be the next big thing. We got about 50 pages in before they decided that C wasn't going anywhere, and we went back to that.

author: McPete
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2011, 11:32:19 pm
content: ESAA NENS 03-2003- "National Guidelines for Safe Access to Electrical and Mechanical Apparatus"It's a book about how to approach high voltage switchgear. Mostly to do with HV access authorites, permits...Zzzzz... I don't even know how I came to get it!