Customer Reviews

Read Me First! A Style Guide for the Computer Industry, Third Edition (3rd Edition)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book (the 3rd edition) that I received from Amazon has poor quality printing: It's fuzzy, as if printed from a poor resolution printer or photocopied several times. The inside cover indicates "This product is printed digitally on demand." Not what I expected when I order a new copy of a book.

Also, the posted reviews, which lament the CD, are clearly for older editions of this book. The latest edition does not include any CD at all. Instead, the book has a code that gives you 45-day access to view the book online. You have to pay extra if you want to download electronic versions of individual chapters.

The content of the book remains useful.

This was published by Sun Technical Publications, which was part of Sun Microsystems. The style is easy to read and clear, not too dry and never frivolous. The book gives clear examples and labels them "correct" and "incorrect" to help the reader. I have used this book for about 18 months and it has served me well. Some unique topics in this book include legal guidelines for protecting copyrights and trademarks, and a description of different types of technical documentation. This is a very good style guide, but I wonder about its future, since Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems was completed a few months after this edition was published. Also, as another reviewer mentioned, the print in the book is less than ideal and sometimes a bit fuzzy. I knocked off one star for that.