O'Reilly
| A word about O'Reilly & Associates. ORA is a publishing company that specializes in computer books. Their books cover a very broad scope and are always written with incredible attention to detail and clarity. In almost any domain where they've written a book, you can almost bet it's one of the bibles of the area. No joke guys, just credit where credit is due, these guys rock.
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| Webmaster in a Nutshell was my first, and is at the time of writing still my most used O'Reilly book. This thing has everything. Complete references for HTML, CGI (perl, windows, ssi, etc.), Javascript, even the HTTP protocol. Also includes docs on setting up all the leading servers. This book simply rocks, a must own for anyone toying with web pages.
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| Linux in a Nutshell was second. At this point the "<something big and complex> In a Nutshell" books began to really impress me. This book is not very useful to read start to finish, but it's got EVERYTHING when you need a reference. I know, any linux jock can read a man page quicker than a quick ref, but this is way more than a man page. Buy this book.
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| PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide. That pretty much wraps it up. :) Beauty of a book, showed me some tricks I didn't know, and the CD with 3400 programs, support files, and docs (including lotsa novels in palm format) was a nice touch. :) Also, I like the flying squirrel. For more palm junk see my stuff section (assuming it exists by the time you read this).
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| Practical C++ is the fourth O'Reilly book I bought. I was desperate for a good, clear reference to C++ because I had an assignment due in two days and had barely touched the language in a year. Truth is that if you're really hardcore into C++, this isn't your bible. Your bible is Stroustrup, he wrote the damned language. But this is your reference for the easy stuff. Certainly for people just learning C++, this is *the* book to have, and I know that if I owned both this and Stroustrup, this one would get borrowed a lot more.
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| Programming Perl is probably the most entertaining language specification I've ever read. It's otherwise known as The Camel Book, and if you're thinking about learning perl (which is a fun, if mind-contorting experience) there is simply no other book. This is written by the language's creators, and is so off-the-wall as computer books go that it's fun to read just for the heck of it (I did.) Never have I seen such technical and precise use of the word "thingy". I also like lines like "Right now this probably seems a little weird, but that's okay, because it is weird." Seriously, perl is the language that built the web to the bustling mass of corporate whoring that it is today, and this can help you become a part of it. Whee.
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