[drallison]

Amen.

I have been (and still am) an advisor to Pearson, which now includes Addison-Wesley and Prentice-Hall, ran a book series on "Innovative Technology", solicited authors, and helped get important books published. Outstanding technical books are few and far between these days. Hank Warren's Hackers Delight is one worth reading as will be the forthcoming The Programming Language Go.

There has been a corresponding erosion of the content as the number of books has decreased. In the old days, books were a primary mechanism for sharing knowledge. Today, rather than consulting a integrated linear presentation of technical material in a single (nearly) comprehensive volume, technical information is burried in papers which hide principles with details and confuse matters with non-standard terminology. It is not only the technical literature that has been degraded. Business books have become the equivalent of brain-dead landing pages where a single simple idea is presented in a verbose and focused narrative style.

[prestonbriggs]

Hi Dennis. Yes, and hooray for Hacker's Delight!

I recently had occasion to reread one of Kernighan's older books and you remind me that I'll probably enjoy the Go book too.