I don't hate many things (except lima beans), but I despise the Dummie's and Idiot's line of books. Why? At least three reasons:
1. Philosophically, I believe that buying any of these books plants a seed in your head that you are not intelligent enough to figure out a subject (you can now get this abomination of a series on everything from marriage to cooking, and computers to stamp collecting). I believe that NO human being is incapable of learning and learning does NOT start with admitting that you are dumb. Dumb (in the sense of these books) is defined as "not having the capability to process data". By that very definition, it is a waste of money to buy the books in the first place. The entire premise is counter productive to learning.
2. Take a look at some of these books, and you will notice that there is way too much prose. The books try to make the subject humorous and light and often are written in a story fashion that is counter to how adult learners learn.
3. Because they are written more as stories than learning text books, folks who purchase these books often either shelve them because they aren't conducive to learning or they feel that they can't understand them. If I had a nickel for every time I hear someone exclaim, "I bought the Dummie's book and it was so hard to read that I felt even dumber and more frustrated", I would be in Forbe's Top 100 richest Amercians.
My blood pressure rises just thinking about the subject.
Many other good books are available for learning any subject. In the computer arena, I strongly encourage you to learn to navigate the help provided in every program (some are better than others), but they can answer many of your questions. Or, I like to recommend the "Visual Learning Series or Guides" of books. This series provides many well document screen shots of the program you want to learn about and makes finding what you are looking for easier. One other series I recommend is the "Step-by-Step" series from Microsoft Press.
You will get so much further with these books and online help than messing with Dummie's and Idiot's books.
Comments are closed.