Old Textbooks?

[Brownie82]

Yesterday, I was at Goodwill and found a ton of old textbooks. I remember Org Management and a bunch more. I almost picked up the Chemistry book, but it was very worn and the Operation Systems and Java books were 10 years old. I got a logic textbook from my grandmother and I found it interesting and have been thumbing through it. I still have my Biology book that I pull out occasionally with my kids.

Long story short: Just wondering how old is too old for textbooks? (I figure about 5+ for tech books). Do you keep any of yours? So far, I've collected the above two and I have this really nice book English 101 that I keep around for writing. I'm super old school and I love flipping through books when I can.

[Bibby]

I keep some of my old textbooks, especially for the more technical classes. I took an SQL class in fall 2013, and I still use that book as a reference. At the very least, I always keep the notes I keep in class, as well as any PowerPoints that professors post on Blackboard.

It's hard to say exactly how long a textbook will remain relevant. A few years ago I found a Public Speaking book from the 1930s. I was taking that class at the time, and it was fascinating to see how Public Speaking classes had changed over the years. It was actually a pretty good book - better than the book I was actually using for the class.

I always like it when professors let you use an older version of the book, since the previous edition is usually a fraction of the cost of the latest edition. However, there is a reason why textbooks are updated. Generally, books for liberal arts classes grow old a lot more slowly than do books for IT or digital media.

[Ideas]

I have some old science and math textbooks from AP classes. Since they were around $100 new, and I had underlined and made notes in pencil, I wanted to keep them and have all this time, over 20 years. However, I need to get rid of them before I move again, because that's a very heavy box.

[zapproximator]

I used a 10-year-old Marketing textbook and passed with a 75
I used to be pretty addicted to coding, and yeah, tech books get outdated every 2-3 years?
Unless you're taking insanely advanced math, I doubt you need a new textbook for that!

[Ideas]

Long story short: Just wondering how old is too old for textbooks? (I figure about 5+ for tech books).

Like zapproximator says, tech books may last only a couple years! It depends on the kind of tech

[sarg123]

I took programming classes like... um, over 25 years ago.

When I moved about five years ago, I found this box with all these old school books in the basement - COBOL, Basic, SQL, C - and I threw them all out. I figured - it must really be outdated, right? I mean, doesn't computer stuff change like every few months?

When I decided to go back to school three years ago... and I was trying to decide which degree would be the right fit, I checked the programming classes. I was really surprised to find that SQL is still in business, and I think C as well (is C++ a take-off on C?). (Ok, COBOL is dead, but it was really already almost dead when I was learning it). I really regret now that I threw them out.

So you see, you really never know.

[Ideas]

I took programming classes like... um, over 25 years ago.

When I moved about five years ago, I found this box with all these old school books in the basement - COBOL, Basic, SQL, C - and I threw them all out. I figured - it must really be outdated, right? I mean, doesn't computer stuff change like every few months?

When I decided to go back to school three years ago... and I was trying to decide which degree would be the right fit, I checked the programming classes. I was really surprised to find that SQL is still in business, and I think C as well (is C++ a take-off on C?). (Ok, COBOL is dead, but it was really already almost dead when I was learning it). I really regret now that I threw them out.

So you see, you really never know.

Good story. Hopefully someone else ended up with the books and learned from them Even if you put them in the trash, sometimes they find themselves a new home.

[Johann]

I was really surprised to find that SQL is still in business, and I think C as well (is C++ a take-off on C?).

Yes, C++ is related. If you know C, you can learn C++ very quickly. Another popular recent relative is C# (C sharp.) Come to think of it, there are many more languages in the C family tree. Here's some info on about 70 C-related languages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C-..._languages

J.

[Johann]

Sometimes, textbooks never get too old. I kept my GW-BASIC books from the 1980s and I'm glad I did. Last year, I wrote some GWBASIC programs using coloured ASCII characters, to run on my Windows machine under VDOS - a free DOS environment that displays perfectly on wide screens with crystal-clear fonts. I did a few things, like tribal rug designs, butterflies etc. just to see if I still could. VDOS is amazing. All your old DOS stuff comes to life and looks better than it ever did. Only text-based programs or ASCII. Other images revert to 640x480. ASCII art, ASCII graphics - any size screen you have. Crisp and clear!

J.

[Ideas]

Sometimes, textbooks never get too old.

True, there are some educational texts from 50, 100, or more years ago which are still extremely relevant.

displays perfectly on wide screens with crystal-clear fonts. I did a few things, like tribal rug designs, butterflies etc. just to see if I still could. VDOS is amazing. All your old DOS stuff comes to life and looks better than it ever did. Only text-based programs or ASCII. Other images revert to 640x480. ASCII art, ASCII graphics - any size screen you have. Crisp and clear!

Oh, nice!