Errata in Programming Books? 55
WgT2 asks: "I recently have set my mind to learning to code PHP. Not being a programmer, yet, I went out and got myself a book on the subject from a very trusted, at least in my eyes, publisher (and they still still are). So far so good. However once I got down to trying the code out myself I have found too much errata for someone who has just scratched the surface in learning the ins and outs of programming. I was wondering just how common place Slashdot readers have found errata in the code examples of programming books they have purchased?"
Publishers should hire college geeks to proof code (Score:1)
Why don't they care?
Bill
Also the chapter on pointers sucked ass.
Re:Publishers should hire college geeks to proof c (Score:2)
The original K & R C guide was legendary for it's coding errors.
Perhaps slashdot posters should hire college English majors to proofread their posts.
Let's face it, we all make mistkaes, even K&R. But The C Programming Language, has been continuously read and referenced by newbie and experienced coders alike since 1978 -- for twenty-five years.
Apparently it's legendary for more than just what you dismiss as "coding errors".
Re:Publishers should hire college geeks to proof c (Score:1)
Grok?
Bill
K & R errors, mostly due to printer (Score:2)
Also, K & R have an EXCELLENT errata page:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cbook/2ediff
Re:Publishers should hire college geeks to proof c (Score:2)
I was once a student of Rob Pike [bell-labs.com] ,author of "The Unix Programming Environment with Brian Kernighan [bell-labs.com](the K in K & R). They were at the time writing The Practice of Programming [slashdot.org] again with Kernighan.
The course notes for this subject were basically the chapters of the book. He asked all his students to read through the code examples and let him know if there were any problems. I don't know if we can claim all the credit (I found some errors in the ear
Frequently... (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently purchased Learning Java [oreilly.com] from Oreilly. Usually I've had a good experience with Oreilly books, but this one was horrible. Several of the examples in the first chapter of the book didn't work because they had typos!
Few things are more frustrating then debugging a "Hello World" program that doesn't work. I went over every character, bit by bit, and my program matched their text exactly. I couldn't find the damn bug. Was I so stupid that I couldn't see the obvious? No! I viewed the Online Errata, and found that a zillion other people were having similar problems with examples throughout the book! Typos galore!
If there are too many mistakes in the book, then let the publisher note. Return the book, get your money back, send a note to the publishers, and buy an alternative book.
YMMV (Score:2)
I absolutely love the book. Your mileage may vary.
And they are using WINDOWS!!! (Score:1)
Re:Frequently... (Score:2)
Much like the production process of films, TV, Music and Radio, book production is *COMPLETLEY* bankrupt. My own experience was, a well known publisher wanted to do a book on network programming and my friend and I were asked to submit a proposal. Long story short, they couldn't make up their mind -- they wanted a simple "network programming for dummies" type book, so we gave them that... Then that was too si
Re:PHP (Score:2, Funny)
Re:PHP [ OR ] (Score:1)
It's very common (Score:3, Informative)
Many (most?) books publish errata on their web pages or on their publisher's site. I've even got a few books that had printed errata folded up and stuck into the cover. I don't mind seeing a reasonable number of errors in a book, especially a very technically dense book, as long as I see that the author and/or publisher makes the errata sheets easily available. After all, we're all only human.
Re:It's very common (Score:2)
btw: to learn PHP the best thing to do is to use their website. All of the functions are spelled out rather well.
Don't know if I count... (Score:2)
I'm not really the most commonplace of Slashdot users, but I usually find errata by looking on the book's website, or trying the code. I suspect the more common-place of slashdotters use the same strategy.
--Dan
obligatory (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's his errata [stanford.edu].
My favorite is the Random Number error [stanford.edu]. It took a while, but someone discovered that apparantly one of the portable random number generators behaves poorly during the first 2000 or so of each seed number. So, naturally, Dr. Knuth corrected it almost immediately.
Never have I seen a man so humble that so amply deserved to be arrogant...
All right, I'll give it a try. (Score:3, Funny)
I remember an old C graphics book I owned (Score:2)
I learned more debugging the errors in the printed code than I did in reading the frigging book.
Twisted, huh?
Thoughts from an O'Reilly Author (Score:4, Interesting)
What really killed my time was adding more content to the book than initially planned. I should have left it all out, but at the time I thought I had the rest of the book nailed down. I should have spent more time reviewing, and getting more feedback from the reviewers.
If any of you write a book, be sure to stick to the initial plan, and do no more. You might even want to cut out some of the content... don't just write to add more pages to the book. That is one thing I hate about Wrox books, imho, and I did a little bit of that myself
Of course, there are always second printings, and second editions to incorporate the fixes, but that doesn't fix the disappointment of finding the errors in your own book the first time around.
Re:Thoughts from an O'Reilly Author (Score:1)
Don’t necessarily blame the author… (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Errata is wrong... (Score:1)
Re:Some authors plant the mistakes on purpose (Score:2)
One Recent Problem (Score:3, Informative)
Above and beyond the errors, I don't know if it's because the book is a "in 21 Days" format or not, but I've found it rather frustrating and useless in the long run because it does not work well as a reference book and it seems there is A LOT that has been left out.
I will not likely buy another book in any "in 21 Days" or "in 24 Hours" or any similar format again. While they may provide a quick intro, it seems to be a week format if you plan to continue in the subject.
Re:One Recent Problem (Score:3, Funny)
I disagree. Isn't the "In 7 Days" format the week one?
Look to the publisher's site (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know which book you got, but O'Reilly's Programming PHP [oreilly.com] has its own confirmed [oreilly.com] and unconfirmed [oreilly.com] errata pages. If this is the book you've got, feel free to go over the corrections noted on these pages and jot them down in your copy -- I've done that with a couple of my books, and would have missed many of the glitches without that hint. If you see an error that isn't on this page, O'Reilly offers a error submission form [oreilly.com] that you can use for that book (and others of course) -- so use it! If the publisher doesn't find out about these mistakes, they aren't going to get fixed. A good publisher will offer revised printings -- not that that helps you once you've got a copy, but it will prevent other learners from having to hit the same obstacles you did. :-)
You can't, unfortunately, expect books to be perfect & pristine. (Well, maybe Knuth's books, but everyone else has to deal with typos & thinkos :-). You can, however, and should expect the publisher to own up to their little mistakes and offer you corrections on their site. Go find that info and get the fixes into your copy and you'll be a happier camper.
yeah, but... (Score:2)
A thought - it might be better to buy a book that is a second or later edition, rather than a first. My reasoning is that 1) the book was good enough (or at least sold well enough) to justify more than one edition, and 2) errors in the previous edition may be more likely to have been corrected in the subsequent edition(s).
For sure, check that the book (and the edition you're looking at) has an errata page at t
Errata Schmerrata (Score:4, Insightful)
Believe me, I've spent my fair share of time and frustration trying to debug bad examples. It took a long time to learn, but when I don't trust the author, I find that the errors are more challenging than frustrating.
A couple of O'reilly books in particular, Steve Oualline's Practical C Programming and his Practical C++ Programming purposely have errors in the examples for just this reason.
The difference is, Steve tells you that the errors are there. It's a good learning technique, and forces you to pay attention to the concepts rather than the examples.
Re:Errata Schmerrata (Score:2)
It's a bad teacher that blames the student for not learning. For some people getting a correct example to function can be an achievement. After the mimicked code is functional, it can be used for experimentation (and learning).
Also, putting in deliberate errors makes the book useless as a reference. If you can't quickly review a code fragment for
Re:Errata Schmerrata (Score:3, Interesting)
The reference books I have are always a source of new information. These always seem to be much more accu
Re:Errata Schmerrata (Score:2)
Ah, but the difference is in pointing stuff out. I'd feel great if a book says, "Look, here's a code snippet that's supposed to do X, but doesn't. Why? (Answers at page 123)". It's a sort of exercise really, and as you pointed out, a good learning technique as well.
That's not what the poster is talking about here. That said, I've rarely found technical problems that weren't fixed by a quick Google search, especially in the Google Groups section.
Re:Errata Schmerrata (Score:2)
Translated manuals (Score:2)
I own a couple of coding books translated in french - it's even weirder. Sometimes the variables in the code get translated, sometimes the step-by-step explanations get out-of-sync and the variables change names, well you get the point.
Do translators know they're translating code or are book businesses really hiring cheap labor?
Then, after reading stacks and stacks of books and lines and lines of code that talk about array
Re:Translated manuals (Score:1)
The disappearing sentence is a good example of that. A translated page takes up more space than the untranslated version, so Student1 needs to talk to Student2 to me
Favorite statement (Score:3, Interesting)
Not much of a problem (Score:2)
I've never once had to look up errata for the book because of coding errors (although for a couple of Wrox books that had pages and pages of code, I couldn't be bothered debugging the code and downloaded it).
Java for Dummies (first edition) (Score:1)
->
The absolute Worst (Score:2)
The worst part is it was very appearent that the professor had no idea, since she just rattled off the same mistakes as part of the lecture.
Luckly I had already had Pascal in high school with a good instructor...I flew through the class while others struggled due to the crappy book...
May not be coding in the book (Score:2, Informative)
Errors are great (Score:1)
And I always email the author if he asks for errors. That way he might mention me in the acknowledgements section and my googlekarma will skyrocket!
Other types of books (Score:2)
This same thing is fairly common in cookbooks.
Many of the recipes in cookbooks if you actually follow the directions and ingredient list exactly, would not come out right.
So when your double fudge walnut chocolate upside down cake doesn't taste right it might not be your fault.
Errata directory (Score:1)
It is common (Score:1)
Hey, at least you are catching errors. You are better off than the people that did not catch them.