Like most of you, I have made my premiere hobby into my profession. I tackle a lot of problem domains in my daily work, as I'm working as a 'Geek of all trades'. I ask you this, somewhat offtopic, question to follow, because I found in the writings here that a bunch of very good it-professionals is gathering here, whose experiences and opinions I learned to esteem.

I normaly don't store how things are done in my precious main memory (my brain that is, go figure:), rather I store whats done with which tool and where to find the how :-)

A short overview (not more, this is not an ad, but a search for avise):
I stumbled across O'Reillys 'safari bookshelve' service. It is basically a service that lets you choose up to 30 books to your permanent disposal for 15-30 bucks a month. You can add and take off books of the shelf almost to your liking; almost because a book must have staid at least 30 days on your shelf before you may swap it against another one.

I'm normaly not very fond of reading books online. But I have a broad range of interests in IT stuff, both privatly and professional. I can't always wait until a shipment of books arrives before I start planning and/or coding based on the sparse informations found so far, online or bundled with the product/language in use at work; and I sometimes don't want to wait to start something 'the right way' at home.

So my conclusion so far is, that having the possiblility to look things up instantly, when the need arises, seems to be worth a few bucks a month.

On the other hand: I almost all the time derive what I need from accompaning documentation or the source. And what if I need some information right away, have a full bookshelf which doesn't allow me to swap a book, so I can't read up what I need to? (I'd be 'mighty angry', I suppose...)

So do you have, privat or professional excperience with this service? Are there other companies you know of, which offer a service like this?
Most importantly: Is it worth a dime in your daily work/spare-time activities? Does it fit in your ways of learning new stuff, 'expanding your horizon', getting dirty work done? Or is it just another bill paid for the 'just in case'-reason?

regards,
tomte

Hlade's Law:
If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person --
they will find an easier way to do it.

In reply to [OT] Online 'Bookshelves', does it work? by Tomte

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