| > My dad gave me his book he used in the 70s That would probably be the second edition, published in 1967. The first edition was in 1961. If you have a kid and they go to a college that uses Apostol you can give them your 2nd edition without worrying that it will be too far off from the current edition because the second edition is the current edition. Same with volume 2. The 1969 second edition is the current edition. The first edition was in 1962. Anyone happen to know of a list somewhere that lists subjects and for each gives you information on how well it can be learned from old books? For undergraduate calculus for example a 50 year old textbook is fine. At worst some of the example and exercises might be outdated or maybe mildly sexist by today's standards. On the other hand, that 20 year old book on learning Java with Symmantec Visual Cafe sitting on one of my bookshelves is probably nearly completely useless. In between would be books where parts of them are still relevant and accurate and parts of them have been superseded and would at best only be worth reading for historical purposes. |
Hah. I think I learned Java with that book as well, and used Visual Cafe starting out. I think one thing I did pick up (relatively) early was that books written to have a short shelf life were probably poor investments. Some "Word 6.0 for Dummies"-type book is probably meant to get someone up to speed that had pirated the program, and not a more general mind-expander that is going to lead you to thinking about how to implement some idea in whatever you're using today.