Xref: utzoo sci.math:4938 sci.physics:4971 comp.edu:1467 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!killer!elg From: elg@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Eric Green) Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.physics,comp.edu Subject: Re: How to beat the high cost of text books! Message-ID: <6284@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> Date: 1 Dec 88 03:40:41 GMT References: <17563@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Organization: The Unix(R) Connection, Dallas, Texas Lines: 36 in article <17563@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, c60a-2di@e260-2d.berkeley.edu (The Cybermat Rider) says: > In article <547@aoa.UUCP> carl@aoa.UUCP (Carl Witthoft) writes: >>Unfortunately, they often come out with 2nd 3rd, Nth editions to >>ensure that all the poor kids can't buy a used text. (generally, at > I think the main reason the Nth edition is published is simply because > developments in the field concerned demand a new edition. As such, a > "really well-written text" might serve as a reference for years, but it > wouldn't be UP-TO-DATE...... That is certainly true in Computer Science... for example, an Architecture course I recently took used Tannenbaum's book, written in ?'82?. In the same year David Patterson published his article "The Case for a Reduced Instruction Set Computer." Needless to say, Tannenbaum's book spouts the "conventional wisdom" of the time (make instruction sets larger to make programs smaller, and you'll have a faster machine). Unfortunately, so does the professor ;-) (but that can be excused, since his main area of specialization is object-oriented systems). However, I have a Calculus textbook from the 1950's. I have two editions of a recent Calculus textbook. Between them all, I can find a number of notational differences, but the content is almost identical. Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, none of them change much or far at the introductory level. The process of integrating and differentiation hasn't changed much in the last hundred years, except that now we have computer programs that can do some of the grunge work for us. But such programs are not even mentioned in introductory Calculus anyhow. So while there are obviously places where the technology changes so fast that you need new editions every year (but don't get them), it's obvious that there's only one reason for edition changes for introductory math and science courses: GREED. -- Eric Lee Green ..!{ames,decwrl,mit-eddie,osu-cis}!killer!elg Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 Lafayette, LA 70509