bob@omni.com (Bob Weissman) (06/11/91)
Here's the promised summary of people's recommendations of PC-oriented
magazines. My original query is appended to the end of this message
for those of you who missed it.
The Executive Summary was, as I suspected, "different magazines are
good for different interest areas." E.g., magazines of most interest
to programmers and magazines with the best product reviews seem to be
two disjoint sets.
Therefore, I'm structuring this summary by interest areas. Thanks to
my correspondents, many of whom were quite specific about the pros and
cons of individual magazines.
GENERAL INTEREST
------- --------
PC Magazine and Byte were the two big winners, in that order.
Interestingly, PC Magazine also had the most vocal detractors.
One correspondent wrote:
[PC Magazine has] worldwide experts in the
field as columnists, ie [sic] Dvorak.
Another wrote:
Both of the big [magazines], PC Magazine and PC World,
are junk IMHO. If I feel like reading underliterate
jerks with grandiose illussions [sic], I don't have to
read Dvorak, I have them on TV every day.
And a third wrote, perhaps most accurately:
You either love or hate Dvorak, but he's a blast to read.
(Enough Dvorak. I *really* don't want to start a thread about him!)
Byte also had (a smaller number of) detractors. Some found it too
technical, while several people lamented that it ain't what it used to
be.
As I see it, the problem with PC Magazine is that while it offers the
most in-depth reviews, each issue has its own focus, which may or may
not interest you. (For example, the current issue devotes dozens of
pages to reviews of backup programs, which don't interest me at all
because I use tape, rather than diskette, backup.) Byte seems to
offer a little more variety in each issue, although they do sometimes
go off the same deep end with theme issues.
PC World, Info World, PC Computing, and PC Week were each recommended
also, in that order of frequency.
OF INTEREST TO PROGRAMMERS
-- -------- -- -----------
Dr. Dobbs's Journal and Computer Language were the runaway favorites,
in that order.
PC Techniques and Programmer's Journal were also mentioned.
Byte also got a mention in this category.
(I've decided not to report on the language-specific journals, such as
C User's Journal, which were mentioned by some people, as that really
was not what I was asking about.)
I was a charter subscriber to Computer Language, and let my
subscription lapse eventually. I found it at too simple a level for me
when they were discussing languages I knew, and uninteresting when
discussing languages I didn't know. (Between high school, college, and
my profession, I've programmed seriously in about a dozen different
high-level languages and four assemblers. And C, too :-)
I've never tried DDJ; I'll check it out.
THANK YOU!
----- ---
Thanks to my correspondents! Many of you offered cogent, detailed
comments beyond simply listing names of magazines.
Robert Dale Grass <apple!uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu!rdgrass>
apple!novell.com!tporczyk (Tony Porczyk)
Stephen M Smith <apple!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!smsmith>
apple!leland.stanford.edu!stidolph (Wayne Stidolph)
Doug Krause <apple!miami.acs.uci.edu!dkrause>
Alan B. Owens <apple!wmavm7.vnet.ibm.com!owensa>
apple!vineland.pubs.stratus.com!jmann
GOSS <apple!jupiter.Sun.CSD.unb.ca!i0i0>
apple!robert@sparc490 (R.Meunier 8516)
apple!bcstec.boeing.com!gentry (Tim Gentry)
apple!vaxb.acs.unt.edu!TURK
Phil Howard KA9WGN <phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
apple!tamarack.cray.com!cb (Chris Brewster)
apple!mtsu.edu!robinson (David Robinson)
apple!ATHENA.MIT.EDU!pshuang
apple!degas.ucdavis.edu!cccbryan
apple!grebyn.com!bittware (Bittware)
apple!gssc.gss.com!timr (Tim Roberts)
decwrl!decvax!shane.peri.com!shane (Shane Bouslough)
apple!ucscc.ucsc.edu!ted%helios.UCSC.EDU (Ted Cantrall)
ORIGINAL QUERY
-------- -----
In article <6342@borabora.omni.com>, I wrote:
> I think I'd like to subscribe to one of the PC magazines, but I'm not
> sure which one is best, so I'd like to solicit your opinions.
>
> I've looked at several of them, and it seems to be pretty much a
> crapshoot. One month, one mag will have a really good article or
> feature, then the next month, nothing interesting at all, and
> vice-versa with a competing mag.
>
> So which magazine do you find the most *consistently* useful?
>
> I'm particularly interested in programming, memory management, useful
> tools 'n' tips, and interesting applications for MS-DOS. Not
> particularly interested in MS Windows, PS/2's, or OS/2.
>
> Please send e-mail rather than posting. If there's enough interest,
> I'll summarize back to these newsgroups.
>
> Thanks,
--
Bob Weissman
Internet: bob@omni.com
UUCP: ...!{apple,decwrl,pyramid,sgi,sun,uunet}!omni!bob