Michael, with respect, you're missing John's point. A PDF can be taken with you anywhere. Small sections at a time can be printed if you'd like to lay around with just a chapter or two. Code examples can be copied and pasted easily. The PDF can be non-destructively annotated.
I'm sure there are plenty more reasons why John specifically mentioned Safari Bookshelf as one who is not 'getting it right'. I'd pay full-print-price for a PDF (I might even buy both at the same time if there were a bit of a discount) for the reasons above.
I agree that they (publishers in general) seem to fear illegal distribution of their intellectual property. This is directly analogous to the problem with music 'services' and lock-in. I paid for my music. As long as I'm not distributing it to others, I should be able to copy it and place it on any device I d*** well please. Not providing this option for honest, paying customers does nothing to deter the dishonest non-customers. Just my opinion, anyway. :-)
Back to the topic at hand - I bought the second edition for the Bindings overview and a few other concepts I had trouble with (I'm one of those "explain-it-to-me-several-different-ways" kind of learners). It is indeed well-written. I'm sure the third edition is even better, though I agree with Scott's assessment that it's more for Cocoa beginners than intermediate-to-expert-level developers.
by J Nozzi — May 14
I'm sure there are plenty more reasons why John specifically mentioned Safari Bookshelf as one who is not 'getting it right'. I'd pay full-print-price for a PDF (I might even buy both at the same time if there were a bit of a discount) for the reasons above.
I agree that they (publishers in general) seem to fear illegal distribution of their intellectual property. This is directly analogous to the problem with music 'services' and lock-in. I paid for my music. As long as I'm not distributing it to others, I should be able to copy it and place it on any device I d*** well please. Not providing this option for honest, paying customers does nothing to deter the dishonest non-customers. Just my opinion, anyway. :-)
Back to the topic at hand - I bought the second edition for the Bindings overview and a few other concepts I had trouble with (I'm one of those "explain-it-to-me-several-different-ways" kind of learners). It is indeed well-written. I'm sure the third edition is even better, though I agree with Scott's assessment that it's more for Cocoa beginners than intermediate-to-expert-level developers.