Free source of information isn't a thing yet - Internet is full of crap anyway.
But a free source of valuable information is a completely different kind of story - the one we welcome with open arms. Usually.
That's why Succinctly e-book series caught my attention. Well, to be frank, it may also have been because I had no clue what does this word mean ;> but as soon as I've found out it's nothing particularily abusive, it has appeared that books themselves are worth checking.
So, to keep the long story short: Syncfusion has published some software development-related books for free on their website. They ask you for the account registration, but download is available regardless of whether registration succeeds or not.
What's inside?
The overall idea for Succinctly books is to give a code-based, practical kickstart for a person who'd like to learn a new tech & starts at level zer0 (but has some software engineering common-sense & knows how to write code using modern tools & languages).
Books come as PDF or mobi (Kindle format) - the ones I've checked are really neatly structured, well formatted & full of code samples that at the first glance seem to have a lot of sense (can't say for sure I didn't read any of their books completely yet): it's a professional work, not a handicraft done in the sparetime.
What's available?
Not bad, not bad at all ... There are about 50 books available - some of the about topics that are quite popular:
- jQuery
- ASP.NET MVC
- Node.js
- Android
- Git
But some seems more interesting, because they describe more exotic subject:
- Service Stack
- R language
- HDInsight
- Direct3D
- TypeScript
What's the quality?
It's free, but your time isn't. So, are these book worth of the reading time?
Honestly, I haven't read any of those book from cover to cover, I've just checked selectively some samples from Service Stack & NHibernate books. Anyway, what I've seen seems very promising:
- These are practical books - minimal theory, mainly code samples.
- Code samples aren't just Hello Worlds / 101 - all of them somehow refer to actual work scenarios
- The content seems far more solid than what can be found in the similiar series: "Instant" by PacktPub.
I can't say anything about the clarity & writing style. No clue about the number of typos / errors / broken formatting either - but I believe that keeping in mind all what was written above, if you're interested in any of the techs they have a book about & you don't want to pay, Succinctly book may be a reasonable choice.
I'll post some reviews on Goodreads once I'm done with any of these, so stay tuned.
