Dr. Dobb's Journal Going Web-Only

paleshadows writes "The first issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal (DDJ) was published in January 1976. A few days ago, Herb Sutter (the chair of the ISO C++ committee and a long-time DDJ columnist) announced through his latest blog post that, 'as of January 2009, Dr. Dobb's Journal is permanently suspending print publication and going web-only.' This follows an earlier announcement that PC Magazine is to become digital-only, too, as of February 2009. To those of us who enjoy reading such stuff away from the computer these are bad news, as there seems to be no other major technical programmers' magazines left standing."

Comments

Missing Options

[Arthur Grumbine]

Well, you could shell between $300 and $400 for one of the hit-and-miss eReaders currently available. Or you could shell out between around $600 for a slightly less elegant eBook reading solution that with can also act as your car stereo, navigation (with some work/extra parts), and more-useful-than-most general purpose netbook. I know which route I'm taking (although I'll probably wait to see what netbook-tablet offerings there are at CES).

Re:Missing Options

[OrangeTide]

Magazines shouldn't need batteries.

Re:Missing Options

[interval1066]

Please, lets face the future boldy, and let go of the past. Its time to think seriously about getting rid of paper for things like magazines. Yes, its not going to be as convenient. Never the less; its time. If the online journals offer an option for off-line reading, that will help out a lot I think.

Re:Missing Options

[Ngarrang]

Magazines shouldn't need batteries

Information shouldn't kill trees. While I don't claim to be very green, I see this as a good next step. The publishing industry will survive, they just need to stop fighting the changing face of the reader and work with the flow. I seem to remember Hollywood boo-hooing how the VCR would destroy them.

Re:Missing Options

[Hatta]

If you'd rather kill trees than use batteries, there's a way for you to do that.

Re:Missing Options

[click2005]

I seem to remember Hollywood boo-hooing how the VCR would destroy them.

Very Crap Remakes?

Re:Missing Options

[gnick]

What's so bad about paper? Most of our paper comes from trees in managed timberlands, which are currently replanting twice as fast as they're harvesting (at least in the U.S.) And much of it comes from tree farms, which are wonderfully eco-friendly. We use a helluva lot of paper, but it's not beyond sustainable levels yet and it's wonderfully convenient. And paper's a renewable and easily recyclable resource, unlike the materials used in e-readers.

Does somebody more eco-wise want to set me straight and explain why an e-reader is so much "greener" than dead trees?

Re:Missing Options

[stg]

Not to mention devices you may already have, such as your cell phone. I read e-books all the time on my N95, and while the screen size isn't great (and is really not practical for most technical material/magazines), I've read dozens of books on it. And since I carry it most of the time, I can read anywhere I have to stop and wait for a few minutes.

Re:Missing Options

[Rakishi]

I'd like my ebook reading solution to not require a power cord to even finish one book on. Just as a comparison the kindle can run for a week straight, wireless off, while that notebook you linked to is lucky to run for three hours.

Re:Missing Options

[plague3106]

Replanting is great, but does that newly planted tree use as much CO2 as the 100 year old one cut down? Trees take a while to regrow... so saying they're being replanting is a bit disingenuous.

Re:Missing Options

[Rakishi]

They're mostly cutting down 25 year old trees that they planted 25 years ago specifically so they can be cut down now. Then they replant and move over to the next lot which was planted 24 years ago and so on.

Re:Missing Options

[SirGeek]

Information shouldn't kill trees. While I don't claim to be very green, I see this as a good next step. The publishing industry will survive, they just need to stop fighting the changing face of the reader and work with the flow. I seem to remember Hollywood boo-hooing how the VCR would destroy them.

I don't think this is REALLY about anything other than declining subscriptions. I used to subscribe toDr. Dobbs (and had been a regular subscriber for 14+ years) until I sat down and figured out the ad pages to article pages ratio and got disgusted. It was mostly ads and I'm NOT going to pay to read ads for Microsoft, et. al.

And sadly, I haven't missed it. If I need to figure something out, I go online and google it.

Re:Missing Options

[gnick]

Trees absorb more CO2 in their first 50 years of life than in their second (I know - [citation needed] - if anyone has one please post). Does a newly planted tree absorb as much as a 100 year old tree? No. But on a 100-year scale, chopping down and replanting is the better move. I don't think that pointing out that they're replanting is at all disingenuous.

Re:Missing Options

[Toonol]

I expect the over CO2 exchange is even better; The paper that is being manufactured is something like 30% carbon. Every sheet of paper is a few milligrams of CO2 permanently removed from the atmosphere (well, eventually it may reenter the atmosphere, but maybe not for hundreds of years).

Re:Missing Options

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure where you got the 50-year number, but there is a break-even point. Although that point is very different depending on species. Basically the tree is absorbing carbon and converting it to wood. Large trees grow slowly (produce little wood) while young trees grow quickly (produce a lot of wood). More wood production -> More carbon absorption.

Re:Missing Options

[Kindaian]

Paper is a nice way to absorve carbon... Specially if you keep it. ;)

Re:Missing Options

[BobearQSI]

As easy to recycle as typing 'clear' ?

Re:Missing Options

[Anonymous Coward]

'clear' recycles your electronic book. Not your reader. Recycling your reader is considerably more complicated (and expensive).

Re:Missing Options

[dwye]

> Does somebody more eco-wise want to set me straight and
> explain why an e-reader is so much "greener" than dead trees?

The paper-making process is very non-green. Really, it should be called the waste-making process, with paper as a minor byproduct. OTOH, I doubt that most e-readers are all that perfect in their manufacturing processes, either.

Of course, the high-quality magazine paper (like DDJ is printed upon) is ecologically worse than book paper, or pulp (ala WWII SF mags), too. The high clay content make it much harder to recycle higher-quality (printing) magazines.

Still, claiming eco-friendliness for either is rather silly. When e-readers can last a century, like at least SOME magazine copies have, they might have a point, unless the owner only uses them for a few things, in which case "dead trees" wins. Unless e-readers include magically recycling old units, rather than letting owners just bury it in the trash, they will have the problem of old units piling up, Wall-E style.

Re:Missing Options

[knghtrider]

Even moreso is the question---Who reads DDJ? I work in a office of nothing but developers; and one lone DBA/netadmin (me). The older developers (in my age group) have heard of DDJ, but have long since quit reading it. The younger ones googled it, and thought it was essentially a non-useful entity since they get all of their information via blogroll.

Has the print media world itself actually (in many cases) outlived its' usefulness? Don't get me wrong--much like James Kirk I love turning pages and holding a book: eReaders do nothing for me. They would get stolen at lunch, but I can leave a book on my table without fear. I just wonder if magazines like DDJ and others of its' ilk should have gone the way of Byte! long ago.

Re:Missing Options

[Tristfardd]

All the carbon in trees and paper and wood products came from the atmosphere. Timber companies constantly improve the genetics of trees so that they will grow faster. Some are now harvestable in six years. People should use wood products as much as possible, and if they end up in landfills that is also good. E-books are geeky to the intelligentsia who are always big on the latest fad, whether it helps the ecology or not seems to be a matter of who shouts the loudest to them.

Re:Missing Options

[Eponymous Bastard]

Replanting is great, but does that newly planted tree use as much CO2 as the 100 year old one cut down? Trees take a while to regrow... so saying they're being replanting is a bit disingenuous.

Yes. That's whee the carbon in the new wood comes from. Same amount as the old tree used when growing up.

Besides, you don't burn the tree to make paper. The carbon in the old one is still sequestered.

Re:Missing Options

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should the future be less convenient?

Re:Missing Options

[plague3106]

Fair enough... does the extra CO2 uptake also offset the CO2 generated cutting and planting to begin with?

Re:Missing Options

[Rakishi]

You mean like the CO2 that results from making ebook readers and the infrastructure for them? Of course unlike ebook readers paper stores carbon so it may very well result in a net decrease of CO2 in the air.

Re:Missing Options

[OrangeTide]

At least trees are non-toxic. Unlike doped silicon and PCB epoxies. If you want to attack this from an environmentalist angle, the energy to recycle paper is phenomenally lower than the energy required to recycle plastic and electronics. (the petroleum used for the plastic is made from dead trees btw)

I think the technology might have to catch up to the consumer to be superior to a book. It is superior in some whats right now, but inferior in others. I think a lot of us are just waiting for ebooks to be a little bit better.

Also, the DRM aspect of most eReaders and ebooks is a bit annoying. While it's cool that I can buy books instantly off amazon and have subscriptions delivered directly to my Kindle. It is also frustrating that I cannot loan electronic books out to friends or sell them to a used book store. And given this lack of feature, why are most ebooks still 90% of the price of the paperbacks? (I know why, it's a rhetorical question)

Re:Missing Options

[Ihmhi]

Besides, those crazy fundamentalists are going to pass out from toxic fumes when they try to burn a stack of Kindles with Harry Potter on it.

Incidentally, wouldn't that be ironic? "Kindle"...

Re:Missing Options

[osvenskan]

A "tree farm" can be eco-friendly in the same way that a small, organic family farm can integrate itself nicely with the environment. The trouble is, most farms are not like that, and neither are most tree farms. Most paper comes from plantations that are often thousands of acres of pine monoculture (planted in straight rows, no less) that provide little in the way of wildlife diversity and have displaced native species.

In southeastern NC, for instance, the Green Swamp *used* to be a vast peat bog supporting species like Loblolly Pine, Red Cockaded Woodpecker, the rare and unusual carnivorous pitcher plants (Sarracenia), sundews (Drosera), and butterworts (Pinguicula) and the famous Venus Flytrap which grows nowhere else in the world except within 100 miles of Wilmington, NC. Today, a lot of it looks like this:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.13646,-78.307457&spn=0.042625,0.061197&z=14

That's about as interesting as a parking lot, just row after row of the same tree, all the same type and all the same height.

*That's* what's I don't like about paper.

Re:Missing Options

[Meski]

What's convenient about trying to read a broadsheet newspaper in a car, bus, train, plane? Even a tabloid format is challenging on a plane.

Re:Missing Options

[Meski]

I think a lot of us are just waiting for ebooks to be a little bit better.

That's going to be Catch-22, in that publishers and manufacturers are going to want a market first. I'm annoyed by the number of books that you can't get in electronic form, given that most dead tree books are already stored on word processors, etc.

Also, the DRM aspect of most eReaders and ebooks is a bit annoying. While it's cool that I can buy books instantly off amazon and have subscriptions delivered directly to my Kindle. It is also frustrating that I cannot loan electronic books out to friends or sell them to a used book store. And given this lack of feature, why are most ebooks still 90% of the price of the paperbacks? (I know why, it's a rhetorical question)

DRM and copyright on ebooks is very annoying. One or the other, please! Either make the DRM so when I give a book away, I can no longer view it, and adjust the copyright to suit that, or make the cost a lot lower, to reflect zero cost of printing, distributing, etc.

Re:Missing Options

[OrangeTide]

That's going to be Catch-22, in that publishers and manufacturers are going to want a market first. I'm annoyed by the number of books that you can't get in electronic form, given that most dead tree books are already stored on word processors, etc.

The manufacturers have to go first. Sony and others have to take it seriously, it seems that Amazon has taken it seriously.

DRM and copyright on ebooks is very annoying. One or the other, please! Either make the DRM so when I give a book away, I can no longer view it, and adjust the copyright to suit that, or make the cost a lot lower, to reflect zero cost of printing, distributing, etc.

This was the hope with DRM, or at least how it was sold to everyone. But it didn't work out that way. Publishers, authors and retailers can't come to an agreement on where the money goes. So they revert to the default of running a model parallel to dead-tree books. And we end up with ebooks that are only marginally cheaper than printed books, without the ability to transfer the material.

It's funny, I know the ability exists to revoke a DRM'd book, because it is done to handle refunds by all the major ebook players. But none of the publishers can admit that inexpensive "book rentals" would be a way to make money and make the consumer happy at the same time.

Re:Missing Options

[John Betonschaar]

What's convenient about a magazine you cannot easily read while taking a bath or take with you on while you go camping without having to worry about running out of batteries or breaking it.

Re:Missing Options

[Teancum]

What's convenient about trying to read a broadsheet newspaper in a car, bus, train, plane? Even a tabloid format is challenging on a plane.

As opposed to somebody opening a laptop and trying to read an article, only to discover that the battery wasn't fully charged for a 4-hour flight?

While I find reading printed material to be nauseating (literally, I do get motion sickness reading them) in private automobiles and busses, I don't have so much of a problem on larger vehicles like trains or commercial aviation transport. It certainly isn't the format which is the issue, but rather the issues related to motion sickness that is for me the major problem.

Reading a "broadsheet newspaper" on a commuter rail trip certainly isn't all that difficult, and you certainly don't have to be hunting for the A/C receptacles to plug in your "reader".

Re:Missing Options

[Teancum]

Replanting is great, but does that newly planted tree use as much CO2 as the 100 year old one cut down? Trees take a while to regrow... so saying they're being replanting is a bit disingenuous.

Actually, a forest is most productive in terms of its ability to feed and sustain an arboreal environment just a few years after it has been cleared and replanted. Old-growth forests with huge trees and a dense upper canopies are not nearly as productive in consuming CO2 or providing a habitat for a diverse group of different species of both plants and animals as do much younger forests.

An excellent example of this is the region around Mount St. Helens, where the destruction of the old forest that surrounded this volcano has lead to a huge increase in both the diversity and productivity of the wildlife in the area, now that several years have passed since the eruption in 1980.

This said, I do agree that some "old growth" forests that are cleared and then replanted with substantially different tree species are destructive to the environments they are found in. Removing old growth Redwood species from the American Pacific Northwest and replanting with Douglas Fir is not a sustainable or productive use of that land. But don't take a few exceptions out of context and claim that all lumber harvesting is a horrible thing or even purely destructive when in fact the opposite conclusion can be made.

As to how long between forest clearings should take place, that can be debated. I've seen numbers ranging from 25 to 100 years, and it should be noted that some National Forest lands that have been put into a 100 year cycle are on their second "crop" after being previously harvested more than 100 years ago under USDA regulations. There is no reason why such a harvest couldn't be indefinitely sustained and in fact serve not just the forest lands but the general public in a very productive manner that helps both people and wildlife.

Re:Missing Options

[CubicleView]

You're neglecting a lot of important info there though.
I don't have a clue of the figures myself, but basically it would boil down to something like.
Energy to build, transport, maintain, charge, recycle e-book over it's life
Vs
Energy to print, transport, recycle the number of magazines the e-book displayed over its life.
My guess would be that (as far as energy consumption was concerned at least) the ebook would be better overall.

Re:Missing Options

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr. Dobbs isn't a newspaper, it's a magazine. It's very convenient to take anywhere, read anywhere.

I was going to subscribe to the C/C++ Journal, then I found out that it had merged with Dr. Dobbs. I subscribed to Dr. Dobbs a few years ago but let it lapse, so I figured next time I see a copy, I will buy it and maybe subscribe again. Then I see this article on Slashdot.

I spend enough time in front of a computer every day. I don't want to spend my casual reading time in front of a computer. I don't want to subscribe to a magazine just to get a big PDF or whatever-format file in my email.

The future, progress, shouldn't lessen convenience or make life worse.

Re:Missing Options

[Anonymous Coward]

What's so bad about paper? Most of our paper comes from trees in managed timberlands, which are currently replanting twice as fast [tappi.org] as they're harvesting (at least in the U.S.) And much of it comes from tree farms [wikipedia.org], which are wonderfully eco-friendly.

Ignoring the manufacturing issues, the biggest problem I see is that most of the wonderfully eco-friendly paper then ends up in a landfill somewhere because people can't be bothered to recycle.

Re:Missing Options

[Meski]

Can't remember the last time I either took a bath (showers, yes, but I'd really like to see you take a shower whilst reading a magazine (actually, that would probably not be so, I don't want to actually see you doing that :))) or went camping.

Re:Missing Options

[Meski]

What's convenient about trying to read a broadsheet newspaper in a car, bus, train, plane? Even a tabloid format is challenging on a plane.

As opposed to somebody opening a laptop and trying to read an article, only to discover that the battery wasn't fully charged for a 4-hour flight?

I'm not a big fan of using laptops on planes - I'm thinking more of PDA sized computers, which can handle that kind of flight time without trouble.

While I find reading printed material to be nauseating (literally, I do get motion sickness reading them) in private automobiles and busses, I don't have so much of a problem on larger vehicles like trains or commercial aviation transport. It certainly isn't the format which is the issue, but rather the issues related to motion sickness that is for me the major problem.

Reading a "broadsheet newspaper" on a commuter rail trip certainly isn't all that difficult, and you certainly don't have to be hunting for the A/C receptacles to plug in your "reader".

Your commuter rail/bus systems must be less crowded. I doubt that you could even open a broadsheet newspaper when they are. Reading a PDA, no problem. Why would I need a AC receptacle? Laptops are *not* what this is all about.

Re:Missing Options

[John Betonschaar]

I only read DDJ while taking a bath, not much else to do while you're in it and reading a book isn't ideal either if you don't want to ruin them ;-)

Re:Missing Options

[interval1066]

Well, your convenience costs me my time when I have to pick up the remains of it from around my house, and I really have problems with your convenience when I go to my favorite woods in N. Cal. and they are cutting down more trees for your convenience, and so on. As inconvenient as it may be for you, its time to start thinking about how we can use less of your convenience. Period.

Re:Missing Options

[Anonymous Coward]

You have never had to pick up the remains of my convenience from around your house or anywhere else.

Trees that are cut for paper are cut from land owned by companies in the forest product business, and they are renewable.

Besides, the smell of sap from freshly cut trees is pretty good.

Re:Missing Options

[interval1066]

I have to pick up after you (and and don't care who YOU are, I still have to do it.) Paper is a anachronistic, and really not as convenient as you'd like to believe. Not really.

Well then

[geekoid]

just print it out.

Re:Well then

[Anonymous Coward]

Until it starts getting weighed down with DRM and custom proprietary reader software which makes it difficult and inconvenient (though not impossible) to print.

Re:Well then

[Atario]

That would cost far more than the printed magazine they previously delivered, and have a far inferior quality binding.

Re:Well then

[whereiswaldo]

The magazine company could partner with one of those companies that do one-off printing of books. For example, you'd go to pcmag.com, click "print this issue", and lulu.com would print and mail it to you. According to lulu.com's cost calculator, a 50 page comic book would cost $15.50 USD to print.

come on!

[Lord Ender]

To those of us who enjoy reading such stuff away from the computer

eBook readers? smart phones? netbooks? I mean, come on, people! If you're in to tech you surely know there are alternatives to big, clunky desktop computers and dead trees.

Re:come on!

[mcgrew]

Some of us just love PAPER. I read Doctorow's Little Brother online, but I'm buying the paper version.

I used to be an avid reader of both Dr. Dobbs and PC Mag, but that was when personal computing was fairly new and the magazine racks in the grocery stores were full of computer magazines. Now all the magazines in the stores are women's fluff rags; People, Home and Graden, ladies Home Journal. Odd since I see as many men as women in the store, and women these days are into much the same things as men.

PC Mag started sucking, too. Dr. Dobbs never did, but I could no longer find copies.

My daughter bought me hardcover books for Christmas. I'll hate to see the day when they're obsolete, but then again I might not live that long (I figure I've got between one day and forty years left).

Re:come on!

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

eBook readers? smart phones? netbooks? I mean, come on, people! If you're in to tech you surely know there are alternatives to big, clunky desktop computers and dead trees.

And if you're into technology you should also surely know that none of these devices should ever be taken into The John!

Re:come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

eBook readers? smart phones? netbooks? I mean, come on, people! If you're in to tech you surely know there are alternatives to big, clunky desktop computers and dead trees.

Neither magazines or books require me to carry around power cables and or batteries. Low tech does have its advantages.

Re:come on!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! That guy will fucking steal anything that isn't bolted down!

The iPoo

[goombah99]

The thing about all the readers is that I simply would not use one in the bathroom for a lot of sound reasons I'm sure you can imagine.

But it seems like one could create a bathroom reader that would be welcome.

Scrap the Kindle and come up with the iPoo.

What I want is a reader that is bathroom and bathub friendly. Also one I could take outdoors and not worry about it getting rained on or something if I happen to leave it out on the deck by accident.

Re:The iPoo

[goombah99]

Thinking a bit more about this there is a feature that makes newspapers and magazines so bathroom freindly that will be hard to recreate on a reader.

Namley, parallel accessibility. When I sit on my thrown I don't go there to read a specific article. I browse the magazine for something that look intriguing. It's hard to manage that sort of page flipping and scanning on a reader. But it's essential to the use mode.

Re:The iPoo

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph79vPIiWbM

Re:The iPoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Thinking a bit more about this there is a feature that makes newspapers and magazines so bathroom freindly that will be hard to recreate on a reader.

Venturing into TMI territory:

The bathroom at work attracts a mix of tech magazine, like DDJ, Wired, 2600, and others. There's a lot to be said for having a variety of reading material available in a format that 1) no one wants to steal, and 2) is essentially disposable.

Re:The iPoo

[Orange Crush]

Fortunately, there are devices that will let you do just that.

Re:The iPoo

[kv9]

The thing about all the readers is that I simply would not use one in the bathroom for a lot of sound reasons I'm sure you can imagine.

I actually can't. I have a friend that's always in the can with his laptop. a reader should be a no brainer.

Re:The iPoo

[El Torico]

But it seems like one could create a bathroom reader that would be welcome.

Of course it will only be used for reading technical magazines, especially the wall mounted model.

Re:The iPoo

[gnick]

What I want is a reader that is bathroom and bathub friendly. Also one I could take outdoors and not worry about it getting rained on or something if I happen to leave it out on the deck by accident.

Actually Amazon sells transparent covers for the Kindle that make it fairly impervious to rain, spills, tub accidents, etc. And, if you're worried about a bathroom disaster, they're priced low enough that they can be treated as disposable (I've actually thrown more than one away myself.)

Why one of these isn't bundled when you purchase a Kindle, I have no idea.

Re:The iPoo

[vux984]

Thinking a bit more about this there is a feature that makes newspapers and magazines so bathroom freindly that will be hard to recreate on a reader.

Indeed!

Namley, parallel accessibility. When I sit on my thrown I don't go there to read a specific article. I browse the magazine for something that look intriguing. It's hard to manage that sort of page flipping and scanning on a reader. But it's essential to the use mode.

Er..uh...yeah... I thought you were going to point out that, in a pinch you can use the magazines/newspapers as a backup supply of TP, something that will be hard to recreate on a reader... for obvious reasons.

But your point is good too, I guess. Still, I can pull up a major news portal... or /. on a PC and then aimlessly pick ariticles of interest... surely this sort of functionality could be added to an ebook.

Re:The iPoo

[LeeMeador]

I hadn't noticed that paper magazines were that useful after getting rained on or dropped in the tub (or wherever). A little water is ok but not a lot. Of course the replacement cost is higher with electronics.

Re:The iPoo

[Genda]

If you're using your brains to go to the bathroom, might I suggest you're doing it wrong ;-)

Re:The iPoo

[Meski]

Thinking a bit more about this there is a feature that makes newspapers and magazines so bathroom friendly that will be hard to recreate on a reader.

Namely, parallel accessibility. When I sit on my thrown I don't go there to read a specific article. I browse the magazine for something that look intriguing. It's hard to manage that sort of page flipping and scanning on a reader. But it's essential to the use mode.

Page flipping, yeah. (continued on page 65)


65


I really like flipping pages (continued on page 74)


74


When I'm trying to read one article. Also, imagine a medium that had hyperlinks to take you to a subject related to that article?

Re:The iPoo

[tjonnyc999]

What do you mean, *essentially* disposable? In a bathroom, darn right it's disposable!

Re:The iPoo

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a friend that's always in the can with his laptop.

Sure, but what does this have to do with reading?

Re:The iPoo

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a friend that's always in the can with his laptop.

Sure, but what does this have to do with reading?

laptops arent just for porn, you know.

Re:The iPoo

[SolidGold]

I thought that was very funny. I was sure you were pointing to a custom made kindle cover.

not surprised

[stoolpigeon]

When I got my January copy it was in a plastic bag with a brochure for sd west. The brochure was thicker than the magazine. I almost tossed the magazine and kept the brochure. So much has been cut back over the years. I will miss the bug of the month. It was an ad but it was fun. Maybe they'll still have it on the web version.

Re:not surprised

[mcgrew]

That's what got me to drop my subscription to PC Gamer. I'd subscribed for five years, and it was well worth the money. A big fat magazine loaded with info, and a CD of game demos. Then some bastard capitalists bought it out, fired all the good writers, made the page size smaller, dropped the number of pages from 400-500 a month down to maybe 150, most of which were ads.

IMO those greedy capitalists are incredibly stupid, killing the goose that layed the golden egg. Actually I think that's what went wrong with the world's economy, the capitalists got too damned greedy.

Re:not surprised

[Anonymous Meoward]

Me neither. I noticed the quality of the paper was starting to deteriorate over time. It became thinner, not as glossy, though not quite as bad as the stock used for US phone books.

Couple that with the decreasing thickness, and it was plain to see that the writing was on the wall (or, more accurately, on the screen) for DDJ.

Re:not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed - I used to subscribe but a few years ago they changed format drastically. I realised they now had six articles insted of seven, was literally half the number of pages, and dramatically increased the number of adverts.

Plus, they started getting Jerry Pornelle in - and I remember he was rather indignant when real engineers complained his testing methodolgy proved that cheap switches have limited bandwidth rather than whatever it was that Jerry was trying to show. (He didn't write that many columns.)

And they stopped Verity Stobb's column.

I think what happened is that somebody got hired that wanted to produce a slick looking magazine - not realising that people that subscibed to DDJ wanted compent content by people that *really* knew what they were doing - a drastically different audience to the typical PC magazine reader. And they were people that didn't really care about the font choice that much!

Sigh, I guess I should join IEEE and/or ACM just to get their magazines.

Those bugs-of-the-month were infurating! I never got them - but then, I'm no C programmer.

Re:not surprised

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Yeah, the in-depth programming articles in the dead tree version have been gone for several years, since M&T sold it to CMP.

I think it's a law.... any good magazine will be bought by CMP and turned into crap.

Re:not surprised

[stoolpigeon]

I really enjoyed Verity Stobb - and Ed Nisley. (He did an article every month about embedded systems.) Both were dropped off quite a while back. I only kept getting it because I'd been switched over to a free deal. It's funny because just within the last couple weeks I got emails from them about renewing. I didn't respond because I just didn't care. I've got too much to read, not too little.

The last subscription I bought for a magazine was Linux Journal and I did electronic - not print. One of their articles really got me out of a bind and I thought I'd try to show a little appreciation.

Re:not surprised

[stoolpigeon]

Pretty much - once the shift to giving away the magazine, their level of motivation to make it worth reading drops. They moved from needing to make it worth buying to just making it worth getting for free as opposed to not getting it. You have to get really annoying - say like Information Week - to make it completely undesirable.

Re:not surprised

[Just Some Guy]

IMO those greedy capitalists are incredibly stupid, killing the goose that layed the golden egg.

Umm, what? Capitalists typically want to get, you know, more capital. This is traditionally done by managing your current capital well so that it brings in even more. This fascist trend of socializing failure isn't capitalism by any stretch.

Re:not surprised

[martin-boundary]

This fascist trend of socializing failure isn't capitalism by any stretch.

Well, may be these capitalist crooks shouldn't be asking for money from society to bail them out, then, either.

The grandparent has a point. It's stupid to let random capitalists ruin a publication just to improve their bottom line. If they're not going to try to run a magazine, they shouldn't be buying a magazine. It doesn't benefit society, which ultimately pays for their houses and swimming pools.

Re:not surprised

[Just Some Guy]

Well, may be these capitalist crooks shouldn't be asking for money from society to bail them out, then, either.

See, you misspelled "fascists" again. I'm as pro-capitalism as you can get, but I loathe those cretins.

If they're not going to try to run a magazine, they shouldn't be buying a magazine.

Agreed. I'm not even sure if I understand the point of buying something just to run it into the ground.

Re:not surprised

[martin-boundary]

You're right. There's various flavours of capitalism, and the one that created the current mess over the last 40 years is Chicago School capitalism.

Re:not surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

Verity Stobb occasionally writes on The Register still. :-)

And, yes, I do recall Ed Nisley's column too. You're right, that was interesting.

Re:not surprised

[tehcyder]

I'm not even sure if I understand the point of buying something just to run it into the ground.

Then you don't really understand modern capitalism at all. If you can make a short term profit by doing X, then doing X is acceptable, and sod the consequences.

Re:not surprised

[mcgrew]

Umm, what? Capitalists typically want to get, you know, more capital.

Smart capitalists keep the goose and collect the eggs daily. Greedheads are stupid, slicing the goose open trying to get all the eggs at once.

The stupid greedheads (most of whom are crooks - Madhoff, Lay, Skilling, etc) seem to be taking over, while the responsible businessmen who DON'T take a buck AT ANY COST seem to be dying out.

That's why the economy is in the toilet. Children (like the idiots who bought PC Magazine and went for the quick buck) have taken over.

Journalists

[AKAImBatman]

To those of us who enjoy reading such stuff away from the computer these are bad news, as there seems to be no other major technical programmers' magazines left standing.

Tell me about it. I've professionally written some articles in the past, and it seems like there's almost nothing left to write for anymore. Either the magazine is so specific so as to be little more than an advertisement (e.g. Oracle or DB2 magazine) or the magazine doesn't pay (in any meaningful sense of the term) for articles. (e.g. Java Developers Journal) Time will tell if web-based publications will manage to support the same eco-system of authors or if it's time to go write a book.

Probably just time to write a book. ;-)

Re:Journalists

[JagRoth]

Probably just time to write a book. ;-)

What are these "books" that you speak of? And can I get an RSS feed of it when it's done?

Re:Journalists

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably just time to write a book. ;-)

The canonical Web 2.0 response would be to create your own programming website, with your own personal slant and some advertising to pay the bills.

One of my old favorites was FlipCode (since discontinued), which seemed to have moderately significant following.

Re:Journalists

[vurian]

Don't do it. Really -- don't do write a book. I did. I had a pretty nice sideline writing articles for DDJ, InformIT and similar, each bringing in between $400 and $1000 -- and then I got uppity and wrote a book (http://valdyas.org/python/index.html). Total income for about a year of working every evening and all weekends, ~ $400. Books don't pay, are a lot of work and you'll be badgered for years by impecunious students for free paper copies, because you're a rich author and the e-copy is so inconvenient.

Re:Journalists

[AKAImBatman]

Wow, that's awful. How many copies did you manage to sell? Even if the book sold poorly, I'm shocked that your royalties would be that low. Did you at least get an advance? Or some other income? I mean, your subject is very much a niche, so low numbers are to be expected, but that's some of the worst returns I've ever heard of.

Re:Journalists

[fprintf]

WTF, why the hell would websense block your site? It's not like learning a little about Python might not be helpful to me at my job, either current or future. Stupid asses. I'll have to check out your link when I get home. Dagnabit!

Re:Journalists

[MooUK]

Some people write books more for the sake of writing them than for money. When that's the case, the return's not important and the time it takes can be a bonus.

Re:Journalists

[Nevyn]

Don't do it. Really -- don't do write a book. [...] wrote a book (http://valdyas.org/python/index.html). Total income for about a year of working every evening and all weekends, ~ $400.

Now to be fair to you, I've seen this advice from a significant number of people who have written technical books (it does not pay minimum wage, do not do it for the money). But I will note that your book is "GUI programming with Python and Qt" so the obvious retort is "$400 ... wow all the people who wanted it, bought it!"

Re:Journalists

[stephanruby]

May be your choice of publisher, or your lack of one, was the problem? Personally, I've never even heard of your publisher and I've never even seen your book on a shelf. Not only that, but your book was published pretty recently and it still doesn't have the search inside feature on amazon, nor does it have a table of content, nor a table index, it doesn't have any customer reviews, and it doesn't even have a picture of its book cover on amazon. What's up with that? May be, you should just have used that $400 to purchase complimentary copies of your book and given it to some colleagues in exchange for some honest customer reviews (I think you'll find many people at user groups will be more than willing to write good reviews as long as you don't ask them to lie about what they find).

Re:Journalists

[laejoh]

Dear Sir,

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Journalists

[stephanruby]

My guess is that it's because he's hosting the same content on two different domains.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt/python/index.html
http://valdyas.org/python/index.html

Something similar happened to me recently as well. The google security thingy thought that my second domain with duplicate content was masquerading as some kind of phishing web site (since my original domain was still up).

I'm too lazy to actually check in this case, but it could even be a host of other things, like another site he doesn't own using the same ip address on some shared host, it could be some proxy, some relay, or some webmail, that he might possibly be hosting as well (he's a python programmer after all). It wouldn't have to an open relay, nor some public webmail accessible to all. Some employers are so paranoid about their employees using personal email, that they'd rather block most of the internet by default.

Re:Journalists

[Zwicky]

Cheer up mate. You just posted details to Slashdot. Sales will have gone through the roof right about.... now! ;)

DDJ, Byte, and Microcornacopia where great.

[LWATCDR]

They where wonderful back in the day. DDJ is down to like 5 pages. The rest are long gone. Back in the day those where the best way to learn about computers. Now we have the Internet. I find it so interesting that so many computer magazines have survived.

Re:DDJ, Byte, and Microcornacopia where great.

[Nasarius]

I liked CUJ (C/C++ Users Journal), which got absorbed by DDJ a couple years ago. For people serious about improving their craft, the Internet is generally a lousy substitute. At least there are still books, for subjects large enough to warrant one.

Re:DDJ, Byte, and Microcornacopia where great.

[LWATCDR]

That was also a good one. Along with Computer Language. I don't know if the Internet is such a lousy substitute. The problem with the Internet is you must be your own editor. You decide what is quality and what is trash. Back in the good old days others filtered the trash for you.

Re:DDJ, Byte, and Microcornacopia where great.

[Nasarius]

Yes, exactly. As a Windows developer, I've found a ton of useful stuff on CodeProject for example, but it only happens when I'm looking for something in particular. I like having a stream of interesting information that may not be immediately useful to me; it makes you think.

I tried reading DDJ online, but it doesn't work for me. Browsing through a web site just isn't the same as flipping through a magazine. Too many distractions, too easy to ignore. And I stare at my screen all day reading API docs and writing code, I'd like to take a break. It's unfortunate, because I see that almost every article in the current issue is immediately interesting to me.

Re:DDJ, Byte, and Microcornacopia where great.

[Anonymous Coward]

The C++ Report had an awesome run in the 1990s. During that time the language and standard library were in considerable flux, and that magazine seemed to be the focal point for researchers, power users, standards committee members, compiler implementors, authors and trainers, Stroustrup and his coterie... they were it. New ideas for using templates and new design patterns were introduced on a monthly basis.

As the '90s ended, the magazine started losing traction, possibly because C++ seemed to have little to do with the dotcom boom, Java, and XML. The magazine folded, and some of its columnists went over to the CUJ (a distant rival in the '90s). I've tried to find a stash of back issues, either for sale on a CD-ROM, or for free on a web site; but no luck. I get the impression there might be some legal dispute holding up the release, but that's just a guess.

A couple of collections of articles have been published (C++ Gems and More C++ Gems), but they seemed to lack the sense of exploration and community that the magazine had in spades. And an 800-pg paperback is just not a very fun form factor; it won't even lie flat while you eat your sandwich.

Re:DDJ, Byte, and Microcornacopia where great.

[calidoscope]

I liked Unix Review in its early years, where each issue had a topic that was covered by several articles.

Re:DDJ, Byte, and Microcornacopia where great.

[Lord of Hyphens]

Adblock the distracting ads. Although be careful how you have your filters set; I had a general filter for stuff off of cmpnet.com, and shredded DDJ when I went back to look at it.

2600

[VirtBlue]

2600 is still in print form.

Re:2600

[abigor]

That's not really a programmer's magazine, and certainly not in the same league as DDJ.

Re:2600

[mr_mischief]

I see someone modded you funny, but IME 2600 has been just as informative and educational as DDJ if not more so. Including PC Magazine as a professional developer's magazine in the summary is what should be modded "funny".

Re:2600

[mcgrew]

Yeah, but they stopped putting the phone hack whistles in Captain Crunch =(

Re:2600

[Evets]

Agreed. There's always at least one article in 2600 that makes me happy I picked it up.

PC Magazine turned into a big ad years ago. At least Computer Shopper is straight forward about it.

Damn damn damn

[wiredog]

Not surprised, the last issue was very thin, but still. First Byte (I still miss Byte, see this 10 year old issue for why.), then PC Mag, now DDJ. Ah well, another subscription to not renew.

At least Linux Journal is still a Real Magazine.

Re:Damn damn damn

[Just Some Guy]

I still miss Byte, see this 10 year old issue for why.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, because when I read stuff like:

Exceptions are run-time errors or interrupts that force a CPU to suspend normal program execution. (Java is a special case: The Java virtual machine [VM] checks for some run-time errors in software and can throw an exception without involving the hardware CPU.) For example, if a program tries to open a nonexistent data file, the CPU returns an exception that means "File not found." If the program's error-trapping code is poor or absent, the program gets confused.

... I want to choke the author, who's probably now a tech consultant for "CSI".

Re:Damn damn damn

[bzipitidoo]

Glad I haven't missed anything by ignoring all those tech rags. That's pretty bad.

I did subscribe to Dr. Dobbs once. But I found it frustrating. They have so much pressure to tighten the writing and shrink the articles that much info is cut or just left out. Sometimes some of those details are crucial, and their absence makes the articles difficult. I am thinking especially of an article on the then new Linux ELF format. I still don't have a firm grasp of ELF's scope and how ELF works and why, and the article lost me by skipping the explanations and diving straight into some technical considerations. It sure wasn't written for the sort of application developer who barely even knows about this mysterious "linking" thing because he never ventures out of the IDE.

Maybe this move online will let them ease off on the brutal cutting. Leave more details in there, and use hyperlinks to point to even more.

Re:Damn damn damn

[Eskarel]

Replace the word CPU with the word kernel and the statement is essentially correct. Of course the difference between a CPU and kernel is pretty major, but its possible the article is better written.

Re:Damn damn damn

[Just Some Guy]

Replace the word CPU with the word kernel and the statement is essentially correct.

I'm invoking the kernel if I throw MyError I'm invoking the kernel? I don't think that's true for C++, let alone something like Python.

Of course the difference between a CPU and kernel is pretty major, but its possible the article is better written.

It's alright, I suppose, but remember that DDJ is written for programmers, not typical users. You would expect writing targeted to that group to be more technically accurate and detailed.

Re:Damn damn damn

[Eskarel]

This is true, the only excuse I can come up with is that, at the time Java, and OOP was still fairly new, and its exception model is significantly different than most of the common languages preceding it.

Probably for the best. Consider what ACM does

[MarkWatson]

The ACM Queue journals and Communications of the ACM are released as PDFs - very useful when searching my MacBook files for research or reading material. I especially like the way I get a paper version of Communications of the ACM to read (mostly cover to cover) and then I permanently keep the (searchable) PDF version.

Dr. Dobb's Journal has become a very thin magazine and for the type of content I think that a web based only presense will hopefully work well for them.

Seriously, dude...

[Khan]

....just use your iPhone while you're on the can to read it. Isn't that why they upgraded it to 3G?

Re:Seriously, dude...

[Farmer Tim]

....just use your iPhone while you're on the can to read it.

Sure, that's possible, but what good is an iPhone if you run out of toilet paper? 3G won't help you there.

Re:Seriously, dude...

[Khan]

True. I suppose you can use your hand in those situations...or the iPhone. Perhaps someone can create a small TP printer and application so that if you ever do run out, you can always use your iPhone to make more. Now THAT would be really handy :-)

Re:Seriously, dude...

[ColdWetDog]

Sure, that's possible, but what good is an iPhone if you run out of toilet paper? 3G won't help you there.

Well, there is always iFart....

Re:Seriously, dude...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the iPhone beats the crap out of almost anything, I can't really see there is a problem.

Re:Seriously, dude...

[Farmer Tim]

Not just handy, you could download party political statements, marketing hype, photos of celebrities, etcetera, and make some very satisfying commentary, which you could then dispose of so it would never be seen again.

Hmm, sounds a lot like blogging.

Re:Seriously, dude...

[Farmer Tim]

Beating the crap out isn't recommended; just a gentle wipe will suffice.

Re:Seriously, dude...

[shadwstalkr]

what good is an iPhone if you run out of toilet paper?

I think wiping your ass with an iPhone might be like using a ball of rubber cement to pick up more rubber cement.

Re:Seriously, dude...

[Farmer Tim]

...only less comfortable.

Re:Seriously, dude...

[booch]

what good is an iPhone if you run out of toilet paper? 3G won't help you there.

Sure it will! Just order some toilet paper online.

Re:Seriously, dude...

[Farmer Tim]

That doesn't quite solve the problem, since you still have to answer the door to accept the delivery*. Unless you have an outhouse, which I understand are fairly rare in apartment buildings, and there could be a delay for suburban or rural deliveries.

BTW, I'd be very wary ordering from Amazon. Some of those ads say "new or used", and recession or not I think that's taking economising one step too far. I just pity the poor bastards who have to put the paper back on the rolls...

*The whole scenario assumes there's nobody around to assist, of course.

RSS

[mknewman]

Most of these journals have RSS feeds. Get a good offline reader that will download the entire articles and you will be set.

Re:RSS

[Anonymous Coward]

You are missing the point. Some of us do NOT want to read something on a computer. There are many instances where I read magazines where a computer is suitable such as when flying, taking the subway or sitting in bed at night. When I am on vacation I purposefully do not take my laptop. Who wants to look at a computer while on vacation?

I miss Byte as well. DDJ didn't have much anyways, I really enjoyed only one article per issue, but I still read almost every article.

R.I.P.

Word to the wise

[djupedal]

> "To those of us who enjoy reading such stuff away from the computer these are bad news, as there seems to be no other major technical programmers' magazines left standing"

Take this as a hint to broaden your horizons - some would say...get a life :)

Re:Word to the wise

[mcgrew]

Take this as a hint to broaden your horizons - some would say...get a life :)

Anyone who's read my NSFW journals knows that isn't always a good idea.

Print is expensive

[mgkimsal2]

Capt Obvious here. :)

I recently started http://groovymag.com as a PDF-only publication, and have had interest from people in print versions. At the small numbers we're at, it's probably about an extra $5 per copy just to cover print and postage, which I don't think most people are willing to pay that right now, though maybe I'll be proven wrong.

We're in a niche market, so we don't rely on advertising, and have no plans to do so. I suspect we may see more products forgoing the advertising model altogether, and focusing on providing value for 'micropayments' - $2-$4/month for access to content. I think the 'micro' in micropayments has traditionally had people thinking about "2 cents per page view" sort of thing, but that's never proven feasible.

What might arise from this downturn in advertising-driven publications are content networks of like minded publications that offer access to content from all sites for a set fee. Aren't there some industries that already do this (ahem - adult?)

Re:Print is expensive

[geekoid]

Yes, but the content of all the sites have to ahve some value that makes them worth paying for.
A market not available for free elsewhere.

I don't see anything at grovymag I can't find for free somewhere else.

Add to that it's a general magazine, I ahve no idea how many issues a year will be on interest, si I'm not likely to buy a subscription uless you have a proven history.

On another issue, you don't seem so niche that advertising won't work. Why do you come to that conclusion? I'm sure there is a good reason, I'm just curious.

I wish you the best of luck.

Re:Print is expensive

[zappepcs]

I'd go for a subscription if it gave me access to online/digital content from my choice of x magazines. A common format, easy to search, with cross references between them. Of course RSS feeds too. I would especially enjoy a mix of computer/programming/electronics information like this. On paper it just isn't possible to get the features I want, but electronically? Very cool and worth subscribing to.

You know who I am? I'm the guy at the table near the end of the bar, having a beer and reading PDFs of print magazines till my battery dies and then I go home. Happy hour is called happy for a reason. I like to see some example code in a magazine and try it out, right there if it interests me. I like ads that have URLs in them. I like things that I can search and cross reference. If reading an article has a hint in it and I suddenly want to see the functional diagram and pinout of a power management chip for battery backed CMOS RAM to see if it would wedge into a circuit backwards for battery backup functions elsewhere, well... damnit, it's nice to have links and just clickity click. I like near-instant information from greatly disparate sources, collated, indexed, and ready for consumption. I also like to use the save button, the cut-n-paste functions, and the 'lets email this to fred' button.

Print magazines never gave me that... I'm not sad to see them go, and will pay for good online/downloadable content.

Re:Print is expensive

[mgkimsal2]

It's somewhat chicken and egg - you don't really know the content in the magazines cause you don't see it until you buy it.

There's not enough stuff out there that's targeted at groovy users specifically. This is not saying that we don't ever run ads. We've got one (for training) and another one for next month. The goal is not to *rely* on advertising though. That's the distinction I was trying to make.

Sure you can find *most* information on the internet for free. The value add here is, ideally, a mix of timely content that's picked, edited (working on improving that every issue), and presented with other related/relevant information. Exposure to new writers that you might not have heard of before is a nice side benefit.

To bastardize a Linux phrase - the information is only free elsewhere if you don't value your time. You need to spend time going out and finding what's valuable. The assumed value we're providing is that we're doing some degree of judgement and filtering so you don't have to spend as much time doing so.

Other chicken and egg is that people may not subscribe for a year if they don't think we'll be around, but it's hard to guarantee you'll be around if people don't subscribe. This is issue #3, and we don't have any indication of going away, precisely because we're not reliant on ad revenue, and approaching this as something that people have to pay for. Witness a recent Ruby magazine endeavor - one issue ($8 print or $3 pdf) in August, then nothing. Or the 'jquery javascript magazine' project from 2 years ago - one issue, then nothing. I think the jquery one aimed to be free with ads, and that just petered out.

Time will tell if enough people are willing to be paying for some level of "custom" Groovy content on a monthly basis. Early indications seem to say yes.

Thanks for the well wishes.

Re:Print is expensive

[mgkimsal2]

Exactly. Other PDF mags do it, as does GroovyMag. No DRM, indexable searchable PDF bundled with relevant code examples ready to cut/paste or run in some cases. There's so many opportunities in electronic publishing that go above and beyond the traditional print model.

However, some people still like print. I believe people that want print will be forced in to paying an ever-increasing premium for that luxury in the coming years.

ereader

[xenolion]

Well it looks like I have something new to put on my Sony E-Reader, that thing is finally paying for its self, just needs a few more tweaks to the pdf view.

Re:ereader

[HiThere]

Sorry. Canceling bad moderation.

This is horrible!

[kolbe]

What am I going to read now when I go to the men's room and don't have wifi access on my phone?

Honestly though, DDJ was a wonderful print publication and was perhaps my first regular read for many years. I wish them luck in their online endeavors.

Re:This is horrible!

[Anonymous Coward]

you could read the grafiti on the walls. That's how your parents met.

Re:This is horrible!

[tepples]

What am I going to read now when I go to the men's room and don't have wifi access on my phone?

The copy that you downloaded using an RSS reader, I assume.

Re:This is horrible!

[petes_PoV]

just buy a printer!

Re:This is horrible!

[djnewman]

Well, potty humor aside, it's pretty difficult to get a PC into the can with you, and if you've ever dropped your phone in "there", you stop bringing it along. Print will always have a place. I've been reading DDJ since its start, and am sad to see it go. Too bad not enough folks are willing to pay a decent price for in depth information.

Different strokes

[joeyblades]

Personally, I prefer on-line versions. With hyper-links and video, the content can be greatly enriched. Plus none of those pesky issues with storing old magazines, or recycling, or worse, land-fill.

Re:Different strokes

[D Ninja]

Personally, I prefer on-line versions. With hyper-links and video, the content can be greatly enriched.

While I tend to agree with you, there is something nice about holding printed material in your hand and reading that instead of being in front of a screen. I can't really put my finger on it, though...but it's difficult to "curl up with a good computer."

Plus none of those pesky issues with storing old magazines, or recycling, or worse, land-fill.

Definitely correct here. However, this assumes that their magazine can be downloaded (PDF?) or that they store it to their site for a long amount of time.

Re:Different strokes

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to hold something in your hands, I have this wonderful device to sell you. Using nothing more than toner cartridges and blank pieces of white paper you can, in the comfort of your OWN home, create your own printed version.

Re:Different strokes

[DoofusOfDeath]

Personally, I prefer on-line versions. With hyper-links and video, the content can be greatly enriched.

While I tend to agree with you, there is something nice about holding printed material in your hand and reading that instead of being in front of a screen.

For me, it's the fear of dropping the laptop into the toilet.

Reminds me of a Comic

[pgn674]

This news reminds me of a recent, funny, and relevant strip from the comic Sheldon: http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/081229.html

Re:Reminds me of a Comic

[SargentDU]

Now that was pertinent!:) Good laugh and to the point.

Computer Magazine?

[SydShamino]

there seems to be no other major technical programmers' magazines

Doesn't Computer qualify as a major technical programmers' magazine? It is the official publication of the official software engineering society...

(It certainly doesn't include enough hardware articles to keep me interested, so I assume it fascinates hard-core technical programmers.)

PC Magazine...

[Monkey_Genius]

Never really was a "major technical programmers' magazine". It was simply a rag filled with useless advertisements and a forum for John C. Dvorak to spout his nonsense. I stopped reading it ten years ago when it became irrelevant.

maybe not "major" but...

[DreadfulGrape]

MacTech journal has been in continuous print publication since 1984.

Professional Society Magazines

[JewFish]

"as there seems to be no other major technical programmers' magazines left standing."

You might be interested in checking out the periodicals published by the IEEE and ACM professional societies.

IEEE Computer
IEEE Software
Communications of the ACM

PC Magazine?

[xdroop]

I have to admit my first thought was: when the hell did PC Magazine become a technical programmer's magazine?

Subgenius Prescriptions

[polyomninym]

At least we can still read the good word from Bob.

hrmf

[Sase]

Might as well give up now, and just stop reading.

Direct Link to Current Issue and PDF

[bcolflesh]

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/cmp/ddj1208/

PDF:
http://www.nxtbook.com/fx/save/dbindex.php?book_id=__NXT__464223b91032bc63c3148f47d139b5d0&pdf=1

Re:Direct Link to Current Issue and PDF

[PCM2]

Actually, no. This is the current issue.

Or you could always go to ddj.com.

Re:Direct Link to Current Issue and PDF

[bcolflesh]

Thanks for the correction!

Re:Direct Link to Current Issue and PDF

[bcolflesh]

And this is the latest PDF:

http://www.nxtbook.com/fx/save/dbindex.php?book_id=__NXT__cd8cd2021abc523d1ec51c3a88ec3e9c&pdf=1

I really don't understand their digital format

[twistah]

Is Dr. Dobb's going to the same digital format as PC Mag? Here's a free trial, which shows you the last issue of PC Mag. I understand the idea is to placate current subscribers, because keeping it in the same format makes the change less severe. I know I get used to consistent magazines layouts, so this makes sense. But I don't know about the implementation; it feels like a zoomed out PDF to me. And if you want to zoom in, you have to go to 200% -- there is nothing in between. That doesn't feel natural to me and in fact, I find it next to impossible to read. Anyone actually like this format?

Re:I really don't understand their digital format

[bcolflesh]

Dr. Dobb's uses the Nxtbook format - a competitor of Zinio.

Re:I really don't understand their digital format

[Cajun Hell]

Sheesh. Why are these weirdo things being invented, which don't work as well as HTML? A web site would absolutely crush what DDJ and pcmag are doing.

I was a Byte subscriber

[VorlonFog]

I gave up on print media after my Byte subscription was terminated with the end of their print edition. Bah! Humbug!

Re:I was a Byte subscriber

[ishmalius]

I quit reading Byte when it changed from a resource for tech info to a shopping guide.

Re:I was a Byte subscriber

[British]

I swear Byte magazine was 70% ads, 30% content. You had 5-6 pages of ads in the middle of articles. I wouldn't be surprised if they just forgot the last part of the article, and continued on with the ads. At least with "Computer Shopper" you were expecting ads. Sadly, PC Magazine was useless to the common user unless you were looking to upgrade. Buy Buy buy buy buy. I miss the magazines that had type-in programs.

Re:I was a Byte subscriber

[lightversusdark]

Before I gave up on it altogether, I bought Byte begrudgingly, exclusively for Jerry Pournelle's column.
I guess I had decided he was worth the cover price - higher for being abroad, and the US advertising was irrelevant to me.

I'm Sorry, but Good Riddance

[Obiwan Kenobi]

"To those of us who enjoy reading such stuff away from the computer these are bad news, as there seems to be no other major technical programmers' magazines left standing."

This is another nostalgia-stuffed feel-good statement I see burrowed into our news stories from time to time as we shed the old and embrace the new. Me? I just don't give a damn. Let them die. I haven't purchased a magazine outside of an airport in this millennium and I don't know anyone else who has, either. There isn't one thing a magazine could tell me that I haven't read (and probably re-re-read) many times over.

Today we have our laptops, Kindles, RSS feeds, incredible PDAs, hell, my cell phone does more than first computer ever could, ten times over.

We don't need dead trees to get our information any longer. Call it the green economy shedding the skin of old media, call it putting the ole girl out to pasture, call it shooting an unneeded service in the face, whatever.

Just please don't give me this nostalgic wasn't-it-great-back-then crap about how you used to be so excited for the new issue to come in the mail. Rather, be excited about seeing your RSS feed updated. Shift your focus, enjoy your nostalgia, but put it into perspective.

Re:I'm Sorry, but Good Riddance

[VJ42]

Paper's going nowhere fast. We'll still use it for archival purposes, will your RSS feeds, PDAs and Kindles last a thousand years? Paper originals of the Magna Carta still exist today. If it had been written in an early .doc format I would already have trouble reading it, I can go to the British library to read a copy of the Magna Carta written in 1215.

Re:I'm Sorry, but Good Riddance

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Good in theory. But...

Today we have our laptops, Kindles, RSS feeds, incredible PDAs, hell, my cell phone does more than first computer ever could, ten times over.

I used to read books and magazines on my Palm tungsten. Then I switched to blackberry, and I have nearly $1000 in ebooks that I can't read. At all. Why would people want to run that risk? The capabilities are there, but after /years/ of ebook publishing there's still no standard that will ensure this can't happen. Print media can always be read, no matter what platform you're using.

Of course, there's a much more practical concern: after 12-16 hours, I want to /stop/ looking at a monitor for a while.

Just please don't give me this nostalgic wasn't-it-great-back-then crap about how you used to be so excited for the new issue to come in the mail. Rather, be excited about seeing your RSS feed updated. Shift your focus, enjoy your nostalgia, but put it into perspective.

Nostalgia is longing for something past for its own sake. In this case, there's a measurable difference in quality. I can count on one hand the number of web sites that deliver the kind of quality technical information that DDJ and CUJ used to provide.

And among those web sites, it's still a challenge to find the valid, useful information hidden amidst blog entries where folks will hold forth on topics they know little to nothing about.

I haven't purchased a magazine outside of an airport in this millennium and I don't know anyone else who has, either. There isn't one thing a magazine could tell me that I haven't read (and probably re-re-read) many times over.

In other words, "I don't use this, and therefore nobody else does either"?

Re:I'm Sorry, but Good Riddance

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

Paper originals of the Magna Carta still exist today.
I doubt it's paper, more likely it is sheepskin parchment or vellum.

Re:I'm Sorry, but Good Riddance

[smoker2]

I used to read books and magazines on my Palm tungsten. Then I switched to blackberry, and I have nearly $1000 in ebooks that I can't read. At all.

I used to have a Palm Tungsten too. I bought a lot of ebooks at the time and I still have access to them on my WM5 powered HTC phone. Have you tried eReader software ? It is free, and I believe you can re-download any books you have already paid for. If it won't run on the crackberry, then maybe you should have considered a different device rather than throw away $1000 of ebooks. But whatever happens, you can still read them on Windows, Mac, iPhone, Symbian.

Re:I'm Sorry, but Good Riddance

[VJ42]

Paper originals of the Magna Carta still exist today. I doubt it's paper, more likely it is sheepskin parchment or vellum.

Quite possibly, but that's not the point. If it's written down on a physical medium, It'll be readable it until either it's destroyed or our species loses the ability to read. With an electronic copy of a document I can't read that pile of floppies (I don't have a floppy drive let alone the software to read whatever's on them) from under a decade ago, but I can still read books that I've had for much longer than that. Can you tell me that you're sure today's formats will still be supported even 5 years from now? If I buy an ebook, will I still be able to read it in a decade, 2 decades? I have books on my bookshelf that were published before I was born I can guarantee that they will still be readable.

Re:I'm Sorry, but Good Riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is good, as long as I want to sit in front of a computer (that isn't running linux). Or stare at a screen ;) I've also found a tool that lets me "decrypt" the files and store them as plain text - but all of the formatting and graphical info is lost.

As far as the device - am I missing something, or are you basically saying, "If you don't like content format lock-in, go buy a device that perpetuates content format lock-in".

Re:I'm Sorry, but Good Riddance

[LeeMeador]

I noticed a problem back in the 90's when I started getting MSDN subscriptions on CD. There were all these technical articles on the CDs and I could go look at the old ones and find stuff to fix old programs that still used "outdated" technology.
Then, things improved and we could look up all that stuff on the web and I found that, now and then, the stuff on the web would change. The archives were "corrected" to put in the current spin to whatever bug the old article was talking about. Then the old articles started disappearing. (I suppose disk space just got too expensive to keep all that old stuff.)
If you keep the old articles on paper, they don't ever change. If you keep them on removable media like CD they don't ever change (but you might not be able to read them when you upgrade your hardware). If you expect someone else to keep them on the web, good luck. (Plus you don't ever know they changed unless you have a photographic memory. Mine's more of a paraplegic memory.)

Re:I'm Sorry, but Good Riddance

[Anonymous Coward]

If you could give me thT handful of website names with articles of DDJ/CUJ's 90s quality I would be most grateful! Most of the coding stuff I find online is utter dross...

Things like numeric analysis, basic algorithms, tuning code for optimal cache use, eliminating jumps when finding maximums and minimums... I want stuff that I will still be thinking about tomorrow. I want a magazine that is still interesting in 3 months.

Perhaps it is more a reflection of the wider range of PC users that are out there today, but the computer magazines are like "tabloids" - dominated with fashion, gossip, idle speculation and advertorials for new products.

I am almost aghast that some people really care that their PC has Blue LEDs, water cooling and 650W PSUs.

Re:I'm Sorry, but Good Riddance

[tehcyder]

I haven't purchased a magazine outside of an airport in this millennium and I don't know anyone else who has, either.

It makes you wonder why all those supermarkets and newsagents bother filling up shelf after shelf with magazines each month if nobody's buying them...

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

To those of us who enjoy reading such stuff away from the computer these are bad news, as there seems to be no other major technical programmers' magazines left standing.

Well, who do we have to blame for this situation where computers have replaced paper media? Ironically, it's those same technical programmers. They're just reaping the fruit of their labors!

c't has always been wonderful

[ishmalius]

If you can't read German yet, then maybe it's time to learn. This has always been one of the best computer magazines in print. It's in-depth and hands-on. I built one of their hardware projects once (an SBC). Possibly still have it. http://www.heise.de/ct/

Re:c't has always been wonderful

[cnkurzke]

Ever since I left Germany i missed the "CT" magazine. DDJ never had nearly the breath of information compared to CT or IX. Time to look into "international delivery". This is the only magazine i'd actually PAY money for to get delivered. (DDJ and others usually were free subscriptions)

Re:c't has always been wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

C't is by far the best computer magazine ever. Latest issue offers a long discussion about random number generators, how to build your own with a lava lamp and a webcam (no kidding) and how their DIY stuff compares to professional hardware. This is addition to a billion hardware tests on various devices, discussions about software design, usability, reports on legal issues, how to build a software RAID on Linux etc. 200 pages of pure information every couple of weeks, hard to beat.

I am not affiliated in any way with them. I can only congratulate them for the excellent job.

Curious

[SGDarkKnight]

I was taking a boo through the PC Mag. article, it dosn't mention anything about the subscription price. In their "subscribe" page, it states $0.62 per digital copy (24 issue subscription). Anyone know what the old price for the hard copy was? I curious how many new subscribers they will need to obtain inorder to maintain their overhead costs... There was also a link to get a free trial subscription if you like. I wonder how long they will keep that link up for the free trial edition. Also, they only require an email address if you want to download a copy of the trial edition, whats to stop people from creating multiple email addresses, i guess it will just come down to how long they decide to offer the free trial.

Re:You must be confused

[jgtg32a]

The battery life of an ereader is great, I read constantly and it will last a week, plug it in over night and it's g2g the next day

Re:You must be confused

[msuarezalvarez]

"g2g"? *sigh*

They still print that?

[CrazyTalk]

I haven't seen Dr. Dobbs on the shelf in probably over a year - and that includes the bookstores in Redmond.

You must be confused

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll type this reply really slowly, to make sure you can understand.

Magazines shouldn't need batteries.

Bittersweet

[digitalhermit]

I've been reading Dr. Dobbs for a few years.. Same with Linux Journal, Linux Magazine, SysAdmin magazine. Though I enjoy thumbing through the magazine while I'm - uhh - busy, keeping the back issues is a pain. They're not easily searchable, take up a lot of space, are not cut/paste friendly, etc..

The era of the print computer magazine is in its last throes. I raise a glass to Compute!, Antic, Byte, SysAdmin, and all the others that entertained me through the years.

Sad.

[Anonymous Coward]

What will I read when taking a dump now?

Nobody likes to look at stroke books (pr0n) while taking a crap.

Re:You must be confused

[Ragzouken]

-_-

cellphone in next stall is bad enough

[peter303]

Now I'll have to listen to typing too!

Does anyone flush a few extra times to try to embarrass the cell phone yakker?

no other major technical...

[ShatteredArm]

CoDe

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

Now what...

[kerashi]

am I going to read while stuck on the toilet? Maybe it's time to install a computer in there, and hope the cat doesn't knock the mouse into the water....

On a related note, I fortunately still have a few copies of a certain Scientology magazine squirreled away in case I run out of toilet paper...

Great: Paper Industry Bailout?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Yet Another Bailout (YAB)?

Well, I hope that the paper industry executives have the common sense to fly to Washington, DC in paper planes, instead of corporate jets.

Re:You must be confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, Obvious Troll! You plum done convinced me that them thar new-fangledmabobbies that need to keep on gettin' recharged and all is so much better and durable than them mag-a-zines I can just pick up and read without having to make sure the durn battery's charged! I reckon there's also some reason you cityfolk love the horrendous refresh rate and the fucking microscopic screens on which you can't stick nearly as much data without tedious scrolling and reloading of pages as compared to a single magazine page, you tiny, stupid, blindly devoted technophile which us primitives out here in the boondocks can't figure out! Thankee kindly for settin' us straight!

Beurk.

[panda]

If they are going web-only at DDJ, they seriously need to do something about their site design. It is atrociously ugly and horribly inconvenient.

typewritten 'zine in the 1970s

[peter303]

I recall the Stanford Math library betting Dr. Dobbs. in the late 1970s. It was more like a newspaper, or a "zine" what self-published magazines were called then. It was loosely associated the the homebrew computing clubs popping up in places.

Wow, horrible site.

[slashkitty]

I used to like the mag, but this site is just plain awful. It's hard to find an article or anything, and it has autostart video. yuck. Can someone please hit them with a clue stick?

There dead!

[John Sokol]

  I have seen this stupid decision done before.
  To accountants it's great on paper, web site's cheaper, and great traffic.

  But they don't take into account that it's the print magazine that's been driving there traffic.

  As soon as they stop the printed magazine people will slowly stop going to there site and they will slowly run out of cash.

Re:There dead!

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly - once the paper has been gone for a little while, it will be "out of sight, out of mind" and the readership will decline.

First issue was in 1976...

[Anonymous Coward]

... but the last really good issue was in the early 90s.

Dr. Dobbs is back to ...

[Mesa MIke]

Running Light Without Overbyte.

The market is dead...

[Kindaian]

As the title states, the issue is that since some years ago, the market and distribution of the large majority of those magazines has just dried up...

If you are lucky, you get 1 or 2 magazines of programming, and 2 or 3 of Linux...

I just don't understand what is in the heads of the international distributors, but something is wrong for sure.

Magazines...

[Kindaian]

Need to be readable in the bus...

And not require a computer to do that...

Re:You must be confused

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Until you drop it while you're reading in the tub. Then you receive an electrical shock, and a financial shock of $300; whereas with a dead tree mag, you're out $5.00.

Running light without overbyte

[Amazing Quantum Man]

They've been doing that since they were bought by CMP. They've been pretty much content-free since then.

There is TPR

[rduke15]

there seems to be no other major technical programmers' magazines left standing.

There is: The Perl Review. (And like The Perl Journal before it, is has nice cover pictures too).

Strange enough, I now remember that my first memory of Dr.Dobbs is an interview of Larry Wall, which I read there in the nineties...

Eh?

[underworld]

What's this "away from the computer" you speak of? Please elaborate.

not all text is equal

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, websites are hopeless at laying out articles. Newspapers/magazines have evolved and seem to have found the perfect layout/font/size for maximum throughput.

I say I can read 10% faster and comprehend at least 20% better off paper than a monitor.

Another request for kindle edition

[Anonymous Coward]

Make it available for a kindle subscription. Of course, Amazon will have to be willing to make the kindle able to display documents better (ie. get rid of the terrible .pdf support) because many people like myself will not buy a kindle just for one magazine subscription, and poor .pdf support is a deal-breaker.

Get the magazine on kindle though, and it would help keep subscriptions alive especially with people who don't want to be tied to a computer to read magazines.

not quite right

[moocat2]

This is not entirely accurate. I just heard from DDJ that an article of mine they accepted earlier this year is being published in February. I asked for one final change and told me that they could not do that because the issue had already gone to press.

It's the content, stupid

[slapout]

Dr. Dobb's has been good lately, but for a while there they weren't. I think that's the problem -- they lost readership due to lack of good material -- and never got it back.

confused indeed

[OrangeTide]

says the troll to the Kindle developer.

In other news...

[ejamie]

...DDJ India and DDJ China have expanded their print magazines to twice their previous size. I am a long time DDJ reader, and am sad to see the print version go. I find it hard to contemplate a good programming article online--probably due to the Internet "distraction effect"--like you can when reading from the magazine.

whizbang gadgets for all

[OrangeTide]

trees are a renewable resource. petroleum based plastic is not. And if you use bio-plastic, well you're killing plants for that too.

Would you rather keep pack of dead pressed trees with soy-based ink on them in your pocket, or a device maded out of toxic materials that is potentially chemically energetic if the battery fails?

No, the decision to use ebooks over paper books has absolutely nothing to do about environmentalism (unless you're an idiot). It has to do with instant delivery, convenience of weight, usability in terms of searching and cross referencing, the potential to reduce the price due to DRM (if publishers kill the used book market, then that's more market share for them). And mostly to have a cool nifty new gadget to support a techy lifestyle.

I suspect most Dr. Dobbs readers fall into the last category.

Cancelled my subscription 2 or 3 years ago

[zenyu]

I subscribed for almost two decades.. but it just got thinner and thinner until there was nothing there. The final straw was when the advertising insert was the same size as the magazine itself. In a similar vein, I canceled Linux Journal last year, it hadn't gotten as bad as Dr. Dobb's did by the end, but had been getting worse for every single issue for over a year under a new editor.

Once venerable magazines tend to circle the bowl for a while before they go under, or "go web only". But after they have lost their mojo, they do tend to disappear within half a decade or so.

Re:Cancelled my subscription 2 or 3 years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been getting DDJ for free. I actually sent in a courtesy sub card for a different free tech mag, and they threw in DDJ along with it.

I'd say the recent DDJ is a mixed bag. Articles are typically far below refereed journal quality, but they give you a glimpse at some interesting topics you might not have otherwise heard of.

Oh well.

bummer

[Anonymous Coward]

PC mag is nowhere near a programmers mag, but this is the unfortunate result of the e-revolution, information is cheaper and easier to publish electronically, so unless there is a huge subscriber base to serve, this is what will occur. See the demise of the newspaper industry as an example. I guess we're all supposed to have netbooks on our hips?

Entering code from the printed magazine

[Two99Point80]

I know I keyed some code from listings in Dr. Dobb's into my Processor Tech SOL-20, but can't remember if it was assembler source or binary. It was a long time ago, and hey, it was the '70s... oh wow.

WTF is "permanently suspending"?

[mi]

Dobb's Journal is permanently suspending [emphasis mine] print publication and going web-only.'

Is not ending the correct term?

Re:WTF is "permanently suspending"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dobb's Journal is permanently suspending [emphasis mine] print publication and going web-only.'

Is not ending the correct term?

 
No. "Ending" print publication would imply that the publisher was going to lay off staff, when it fact it is rightsizing its workforce for alignment with changing economic conditions.

Showing my age, I know...

[absurdist]

...but does anyone here remember/miss MicroCornucopia or The Computer Journal?

Still, it is a huge lost off functionality

[ibsteve2u]

Try tearing a page off your laptop or e-book when you belatedly realize that you are out of T/P.

Re:You must be confused

[Meski]

I'll type this reply really slowly, to make sure you can understand.

Magazines shouldn't need batteries.

Fuel cells, perhaps? Yes, I'm being deliberately obtuse. It's my reaction to others who are being deliberately obtuse.

Re:You must be confused

[Meski]

Have you used one recently? No scrolling, nothing more complicated than pushing a button for page turning. Dead tree magazines require page turning as well. And my magazine doesn't receive phone calls, do appointments, etc. Batteries, well, if you can remember to plug it in when you go to bed, that one's sorted.

Re:You must be confused

[Teancum]

This wasn't being obtuse. This was being very direct and to the point, using a minimal number of words.

How about this for more clarity (or at least my own opinion):

Any technology that is seen as a "replacement" for an older technology should not throw away useful and important features of that previous technology simply "because" it is an advance (or change) in technology.

Better put, magazines shouldn't need batteries. Direct, to the point, and clearly on-topic unlike the reply.

Reader abuse

[Maury Markowitz]

I don't mind reading online, I do it all the time. What I do mind is how the magazines feel perfectly happy abusing my eyeballs with enormous numbers of ads, many of them moving.

Consider, for instance, theglobeandmail.com. Click though to any article and you'll find a set of google banner ads at the top, a picture ad on the right, another google ad on the right, and another set at the bottom.

Compare with the average page in the print edition, which might have one or two ads per page, "shared" across all the articles. I find the experience annoying, and don't read online version of dead tree works for that reason.

Palm ebooks on other devices

[Fencepost]

Assuming that your ebooks are in PalmDoc format, MobiPocket's free reader does read them on the blackberry. It has some problems (dictionary issues with the decoding, I suspect) but I'd expect those to get worked out in time. Similarly, I expect that someone will develop a PalmDoc reader for the blackberry - the format is available.

Re:You must be confused

[petermgreen]

You could similarly say "watches shouldn't need batteries". Most people still buy electric watches though. The hassle and cost of having to take you watch to have it's battery replaced occasionally is outweighed by the advantage of not having to wind your watch all the time.

and the e-ink based ebook readers have very long battery life, enough that you can easilly do several days of pretty heavy reading between charges. Is having to plug in every few days really less conviniant that carrying round a stack of books/magazines/datasheets and/or swapping different ones in and out of your bag every day. It's not like a laptop where you generally have to charge it after a few hours of use.

Re:You must be confused

[ultranova]

Until you drop it while you're reading in the tub. Then you receive an electrical shock, and a financial shock of $300; whereas with a dead tree mag, you're out $5.00.

Magazine paper is surprisingly water-resistant. If you don't leave it to soak, but pick it up and let dry, it will likely be perfectly readable. Some pages and page edges will simply warp a little, but that's hardly a reason to buy a new copy.

Re:You must be confused

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Sorry, should have said, "$5.00 if anything".

Re:You must be confused

[Meski]

This wasn't being obtuse. This was being very direct and to the point, using a minimal number of words.

How about this for more clarity (or at least my own opinion):

Any technology that is seen as a "replacement" for an older technology should not throw away useful and important features of that previous technology simply "because" it is an advance (or change) in technology.

Depends on whether the features it introduces are more useful than the features left out, or the compromises made (needing battery[2])

Better put, magazines shouldn't need batteries. Direct, to the point, and clearly on-topic unlike the reply.

To use a car analogy[1], cars replaced horses, but required petrol (you call it gas) So we should not use cars because they require petrol, whereas the thing they were replacing did not?

[1] something I've always yearned to do.
[2] you could argue that since battery is the collective noun for a group of cells ... :)

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