Ask HN: are there any concise IT books out there?

2 pointsby resdirector17 anni fa3 comments

I recently decided to make the shift from physics to IT. In physics we would have very concise (less than 100 page) books that would cover things like Fourier Transforms, Special Relativity etc. These would usually be published by the Cambridge or Oxford university presses and would be highly theoretical and compressed.

In IT I've been amazed by how many 500 page behemoths that exist to describe each particular framework in excruciating detail. I want to get a tight, in-depth explanation of MVC, design patterns, databases etc, in a short period of time. Are there any publishers of highly compressed books out there for IT?

3 comments

ajm17 anni fa

I suspect that you represent a small (significant?) market segment as I have not seen many IT book titles or series that meet your requirements. O'Reilly have a series, "Essentials" that appear to have started off with this intention but later titles are bloated.

yan17 anni fa

Not exactly IT, but K&R's "The C Programming Language" is beautifully concise and contains the perfect blend of examples, explanations and reference. One of my favorite technical books and was at one point, most used, as shown by its highly-worn cover.

resdirector17 anni fa

Woops, I meant:

Are there any publishers of highly compressed books for web development?