Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!xanth!mcnc!rti!bcw
From: bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: IBM vs. Mac - Long (was Re: Xerox sues Apple!!!)
Summary: Book for using Windows
Message-ID: <3366@rti.UUCP>
Date: 27 Dec 89 22:10:05 GMT
References: <5842@eos.UUCP> <10684@encore.Encore.COM> <22526@ut-emx.UUCP> <5148@skinner.nprdc.arpa>
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC
Lines: 34

In article <5148@skinner.nprdc.arpa>, malloy@nprdc.arpa (Sean Malloy) writes:
> In article <22526@ut-emx.UUCP> osmigo@emx.UUCP (Ron Morgan) writes:
> >I was amused when, in a local bookstore, I saw a HUGE book on "Using Micro-
> >soft Windows." It must have been 3 inches thick. Imagine a 1200-page book
> >on "using Macintosh windows." Gaaaaaaaaahhhhhh.....
> 
> Have you ever seen the 5-volume, 1000+ page reference library that you
> need to write software that is integrated with the Mac interface? I believe
> that the MS Windows book includes information you neet for writing software
> that is integrated to the Windows interface. Try comparing equivalent
> reference documentsa

There is a book just on USING Microsoft Windows (sorry, I don't remember the
name of the author) - this is distinct from the documentation you get WITH
Windows, the documentation you get WITH the Windows toolkit, and the book
by Charles Petzold on "Programming Windows".  I have seen it in the bookstore,
and have flipped through it, but it doesn't strike me as terribly useful -
it pretty much duplicates the information in the manual, and you can find out
as much or more by playing around with the applications (sort of like using
the Mac).

I have never encountered anyone who actually *read* it.  But I'm not at
all sure that that is the point!  Books (especially technical books) are
printed by publishers and sold by bookstores because *somebody* will buy
them - not because anybody will *read* them.  If you are the typical PC
user who has gotten used to buying a book to lead you by the nose through
how to run 1-2-3, you may well buy a book like this before you realize that
you don't need it, and you may even read it out of the habit of having to
read books like this.

But offhand I don't recall any other computer book that I thought was more
of a waste of perfectly good paper and ink than that particular tome.

						Bruce C. Wright