Kindle Edition of The Pragmatic Programmer for $2.99

Kindle Edition of The Pragmatic Programmer for $2.99(amazon.com)

155 points by matthewlmcclure 13 years ago | 103 comments

mva 13 years ago |

For the ones that are seeing a different price. There is a small trick workaround for that. You can generate a real US address here: http://www.realusaaddress.com/ and make that your primary address. As you as shipping digital stuff it doesn't matter that it's not your real address. Prices of the Kindle store should drop immediately.

Watch out when making non digital purchases though that you select the correct address ;-)

KTamasEnty 13 years ago | |

Yes you can use a fake US address and set your Kindle country to the US, but Amazon monitors the IPs (and credit cards) you are buying from and after a few purchaes to your fake US address, they'll start sending you letters asking for proof you live there and eventually lock you out (force you to change back to your real country) if you can't provide them.

GFischer 13 years ago | | |

Amazon killed a coworker's Kindle Fire account, because he was forced to add a test credit card - you can't use Kindle Fire without an U.S. cc, which sucks.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/secret-kindle-fire-north-americ...

tons of hoops to jump to use a Kindle Fire outside the U.S.

kruk 13 years ago | | |

You should be able to use a proxy then. Or buy as a gift, for some reason they don't block those.

EliRivers 13 years ago | |

And..... bang! It's easier to pirate it, so I will. When it's difficult to give someone my money, I just won't bother.

I am well aware that the world of international publishing is a convoluted mess (Charles Stross covers it well over on antipope); I'm not sympathetic enough to that mess to be willing to get charged such disparate amounts.

Tyrannosaurs 13 years ago | |

If the Kindle is registered to a UK device it blocks it at that point.

I used a proxy so I looked like I was in the US, registered a new account and it was all fine but it wouldn't let me gift it to a UK Kindle.

jagira 13 years ago | |

I don't get the difference in pricing.

Do Kindle books involve local publishers like printed books? (e.g A book published by Penguin in USA and TMG in India has different prices)

kruk 13 years ago | | |

Yep. You can read an answer to a similar question here: http://brentweeks.ning.com/forum/topics/not-allowed-to-buy-y...

jlarocco 13 years ago |

I hope this trend catches on.

Between my Kindle and iPad, I'd really like to never buy a physical book ever again. But then I still have four full book cases from before Kindle existed. I want to "upgrade" to ebooks, but I don't want to spend the money. At $3 each, I'd at least upgrade some of the better ones.

jmduke 13 years ago | |

I have this amazing dream of a facility where I can bring in boxes of books and they hand me back a USB drive filled with pdf copies of those books.

I don't know how or when that would happen, but it would be glorious.

lookatpete 13 years ago | | |

http://1dollarscan.com/index.php

Haven't used them, but it might be worth a shot

jlgreco 13 years ago | | |

Some universities do this. (Well, mine did at least). I think normally you had to pay, but I new a few people who talked the university into doing it for free for them. They also give you back the original books, spiral bound (they cut the spines off them in order to scan them).

You may be able to find a local university willing to do this for non-students.

skeletonjelly 13 years ago | | |

They have this system at my local bank branch (I assume it's worldwide though, I hope at least) that you bring in a bag of coins, dump them into the slot and in a few seconds you've got a receipt to get that credited to your bank account. This for books would be great! Books go in, epubs come out!

davidwparker 13 years ago | | |

snapbook in Japan does basically that. You pay 100 yen and send them a book and they send you back a pdf. http://snapbook.jp/

ocirion 13 years ago | | |

I have the same dream about CDs and DVDs.

srs0001 13 years ago | |

Perhaps, like purchasing a license to all forms of the work? I too would like to start purchasing ebooks, but used books are much cheaper than a kindle versions on amazon.

This is a great find though!

salman89 13 years ago |

Awesome price, but worrisome for the state of high quality digital publications. I feel that this is worth much more than $2.99, and I am afraid that it will become a race to the floor .

Does anyone involved in print publications know what the cost distribution is on a book's sticker price?

djt 13 years ago |

PG could you please change the title to reflect its only $2.99 in the US?

Im in OZ and it's $31.99

rickmb 13 years ago | |

$5.74 in The Netherlands.

Still a steal, but the painful part of this kind of opaque discriminatory pricing is that I would have bought it if it was $6 everywhere, but now I have to start wondering if I'm getting screwed (again( for being in/from "the wrong country".

For those unfamiliar with it, being confronted with the "you're from the wrong country" thing feels really, profoundly wrong and insulting, even if the difference is only 3 dollars.

jacques_chester 13 years ago | |

I wonder if this is yet another example of Australian readers being shafted by parallel importation laws, so that Tim Winton can make a few extra bucks.

brc 13 years ago | | |

Tim Winton or his lame publishers?

The sooner the Australian publishing + bookselling industry dies, the sooner a newer, better model can arise from it's twitching corpse.

jentulman 13 years ago | |

In the uk I'm seeing $24 dollars from .com and £15 from .co.uk

chanux 13 years ago | |

I bought 2 copies for $2.99. A friend in .ca told me he sees $31.99. I went there to gift him one. It was $4.99 by then. Gifted it anyway because it's was the best deal I ever had (It's worth the original price but it's a bit too far for me).

I have a Kindle connected to my account (My friend didn't) and I have a US address listed (I'm Sri Lankan).

chad_oliver 13 years ago | |

You should come to NZ: It's 2.99 here.

chollida1 13 years ago | |

It's currently $31.47 in Canada.

kroger 13 years ago | |

It's not only in the US. I was able to buy it from Brazil.

Dramatize 13 years ago | |

Hmm. Went to click buy but it was still $31.99.

djt 13 years ago | |

If it is gifted then does it come from the original gifters price or the giftee?

Could be an interesting way to hack around it

coffeejunk 13 years ago | |

Germany: $30.65 in the US Amazon Store and EUR 24,94 in the German Amazon Store

Bro_Merch 13 years ago | |

I just bought it for $2.99 in WashingtonDC

ak0s 13 years ago | |

It's $4.99 for me (I'm in Russia)

davewasthere 13 years ago |

Bit bummed that it's not available on Amazon.co.uk for even £2.99... Instead it's £15.30

Think I've got the physical book somewhere anyway. It's just now that I travel a lot, I like to have the Kindle version as well.

Seth Godin seems to be able to synchronise his deals/giveaways between amazon.com & amazon.co.uk... Shame this wasn't as well.

DrStalker 13 years ago | |

USD$31.99 for me in Australia.

droob 13 years ago |

Be warned that this is a very clunky e-book port -- they don't make much effort to adapt the sidebars and quotes to .mobi format, so you end up reading into the middle of them without realizing it.

ConstantineXVI 13 years ago | |

At the normal price I'd be more concerned (.mobi doesn't seem that friendly to technical books to begin with), but for $3 I'd say it's far less of an issue.

ninetax 13 years ago |

This is really an excellent book. I feel like this book was the pivotal thing that really let me see how the small amount of programming I knew could be so much more with the practices preached in that book.

It took me from "OK I get how to program in Java, but how the heck do I build this cool stuff I see everyday?" to "oh, if I wanted to do that I can see pretty much how I would build it (regardless of language)"

It's a must read.

dbecker 13 years ago | |

Agreed. I've read a few different programming books, and this was the one that did the most to improve my programming.

The material isn't incredibly advanced, so some expert programmers will get less out of it. But I think it's very worthwhile for 90% of programmers.

I would highly recommend this book to most people considering it.

epsil 13 years ago |

Does anybody know of a good PDF version of this book? The only one I've found is at Safari Books Online, which is a subscription site with "tokens". It appears to let you download the book chapter for chapter.

http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/software-engineering-an...

milesf 13 years ago |

I see a price of $31.47

goochtek 13 years ago | |

I see $31.99 in Australia. The interesting thing though is that the link has a referral code in it. Maybe the submitter is trying to make some money on it with some bait and switch ?

Smerity 13 years ago | | |

I see $31.99 in Australia too... This is making me rage a little inside. It's a DIGITAL BOOK Amazon. DIGITAL. Bits. I know it's a little bit further to Australia but for the love of...

Amazon is like the Harvey Two-Face -- half amazing and half frustrating. I have a Kindle Fire in Australia, but as Australia isn't an official country yet, Amazon Market doesn't work. And by doesn't work I mean I can't even download free applications without an American credit card. Amazon support know this and just apologise.

When friends ask me about the Kindle Fire in Australia, I won't say good stuff about it. When it finally is released here, do you think they'll be it? No. They'll remember I said it was annoying for some reason. The reason doesn't matter. Bad is bad so they'll decide, many moons ago, that they're not getting it.

Amazon in Australia are horrible. For many, many reasons[1].

[1]: Amazon Affiliate program pays out by gift certificate or check to Australia -- http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/11/29/an-open-letter...

weaksauce 13 years ago | | |

Not really a bait and switch but yeah I imagine they are trying to do just that. The referral code sets a cookie that lasts for anything that you buy for 24hrs from amazon.

richardw 13 years ago | | |

$4.99 in South Africa. I also spotted the referral code, which I didn't think anyone would try on HN. Oh well, bought.

anonimo 13 years ago |

I'm midway through this book and I'm fairly disappointed with it. It's not a bad book, bu much of the advice in it is common sense. And the parts that aren't common sense aren't very convincing (silly metaphors etc). Some of these 3-star reviews do a good job of reviewing it:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-eb...

rwl4 13 years ago |

Maybe they meant to type 29.95 or similar but somehow typed something like 2.995?

eupharis 13 years ago |

By the by, for those familiar with the pragmatic bookshelf, and were hoping to get it without DRM on that site, this was published by Addison Wesley, not pragmatic bookshelf.

One wonders how much the authors' experience publishing with Addison Wesley led to their founding Pragmatic Bookshelf.

They do have a page for the book on their site:

http://pragprog.com/the-pragmatic-programmer/

But the buy link is broken:

http://pragprog.com/the-pragmatic-programmer/titles/tpp

In short, just buy the damn thing from Amazon.

I've used my Kindle everyday for two years. This is the first DRM'd ebook I've ever bought.

chm 13 years ago | |

I think the link's simply malformed. This makes more sense:

http://pragprog.com/titles/tpp

But still, no option to buy.

AndyHunt 13 years ago | |

Would ya'll like a DRM-free version of TPP from our site?

lparry 13 years ago | | |

Most definitely

eupharis 13 years ago | | |

Please!

iceron 13 years ago |

Affiliate tag? Not cool.

rodly 13 years ago | |

I honestly think people that complain about referral link are just inherently negative. A free link, that takes you to a promotion, that saves you money, and you want to point out that the guy who brought this to your attention, is gaining something positive, at no expense to you or anyone. You probably pirated the book too.

Thanks OP, great deal and I bought it.

iceron 13 years ago | | |

Regardless, this type of linking violates responsible FTC disclosure.

http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005endorsementguidesfnnotic...

LoganCale 13 years ago | |

God forbid someone else make a small bit of money off a sale in exchange for promoting it!

andyl 13 years ago | |

I don't agree. Was glad to get notified about this bargain. IMHO this is what affiliate programs are for.

richardw 13 years ago | | |

The problem is, once you start that on HN you'll have yet another reason for overposters to post every vaguely relevant special they see. I didn't mind that the poster did it (so bought via the referral) but it'd be sad if this caught on, and I wouldn't post a link with a referral myself. The benefits around here are karma, mutual respect and increased collective wisdom. Let's not find ways to dilute those further.

Nick5a1 13 years ago |

To anyone outside the US, you can easily add a second US address (or any other country) to your kindle account.

Go to Your Account > Manage Your Kindle (in the Digital Content section) > Country Settings > Enter any US address and click update

You will now have US pricing. You can go ahead and add different addresses in other countries and you can simply switch between them to take advantage of different pricing, because Amazon remembers your previous addresses. The country you have selected has no effect at all on being able to download the book, you can still download from anywhere.

oemera 13 years ago | |

Thank you! This worked for me and you can find addresses and phone numbers on http://www.realusaaddress.com/

medell 13 years ago | |

I'm in Canada and this worked for me, $2.99, and is now on my Kindle.

Some other Kindle book prices dropped in price as well.

ljf 13 years ago |

Reading the comments/reviews on Amazon, and I was wondering what peoples take on this book is for non-coders?

I'm purely editorial/product (not project) management - but this looks like it could give me a rounded understanding of best practice.

Those who have read it, would you recommend to someone of my background?

dripton 13 years ago | |

Yes. I loved this book, but didn't really get much out of it except affirmation of my own beliefs. I think it would be much more valuable for a new programmer, or a non-programmer who works with programmers, than for an experienced programmer.

osxwm 13 years ago |

In the US, logged into my US Amazon account that is linked to a Kindle I see the price of $2,99

SCdF 13 years ago |

Wow, so this is the first time I've seen one-click purchasing (It's not normally enabled for me). It's really disconcerting. Not that I want to (and it's only $3) but is there any way to cancel a one-click purchase? It's not obvious..

jonknee 13 years ago | |

Yes and especially easy for digital orders.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...

> Books you purchase from the Kindle Store are eligible for return and refund if we receive your request within seven days of the date of purchase. Once a refund is issued, you'll no longer have access to the book. To request a refund and return, visit Manage Your Kindle, click the actions tab for the title you'd like to return, and select "Return for refund."

goochtek 13 years ago |

Any US users want to help us foreigners out by gifting it for the $2.99 price?

jconnop 13 years ago | |

I have the $2.99 price available to me in New Zealand.

As I'm usually the one getting screwed by regional pricing (on steam), I'd be happy to help out.

Just drop me the funds via paypal and I'll gift to your email via amazon.

Email me: jconnop at google's glorious gmail.

deepuj 13 years ago | | |

I doubt if that will work. As per http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_2... "If the giver and the recipient do not live in the same country, the book may not available to the recipient due to copyright restrictions. In these cases the recipient will be given the option to request an exchange for gift credit on their Amazon.com account during the redemption process, or they may contact Customer Service for assistance in exchanging the book."

tomlogic 13 years ago |

Must have been a limited time offer -- I got a sample sent to my Kindle, and now that I'm ready to buy it's jumped back up to US$22.79.

jnotarstefano 13 years ago |

Unfortunately not available to italian customers, who'd have to purchase it at 19 euros (23 dollars). Is there a legal workaround?

_joe 13 years ago | |

The only workaround I see I declaring you have moved to the US. I work for a US corporation and with the company VPN I'm allowed to see the 2.99 $ price, but when I log in I'm told I can only buy titles from amazon.it.

So, no luck, we're stuck with 19 euros (which is still a good price though).

imrehg 13 years ago |

$4.99 over here because of Whispernet.... (darn, and it would just use wifi anyway)

re_todd 13 years ago |

Crap, I bought it a couple months ago for full price, should have waited.

tapsboy 13 years ago |

Philanthropy or Strategy?

alecdibble 13 years ago |

Thanks! That is quite the discount.

deepuj 13 years ago |

It's priced at 34 USD in India. :(

zappan 13 years ago |

Croatia - $4.99 - still a bargain

newsomderek 13 years ago |

This is awesome!

avallark 13 years ago |

fuck you, you just cost me 27$. You should have mentioned (for US only)

My mistake for completely trusting something i read here. next time i ll be double checking. lesson learned.

vijayr 13 years ago | |

Relax, you can return the book

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...

avallark 13 years ago | |

I just figured out how to do this. In "Manage your Kindle" option on your Amazon account, you can return any item that has been bought in the last 7 days.

danbee 13 years ago | |

Seriously? You just clicked on "Buy" without even confirming the price?