Learning CS5
Sorry for the long wait… I just <inserts usual excuses>. Actually I happen to be on vacation in Portland. I have been spending quite a bit of time recently trying to “learn CS5″ with limited success… I do dislike reading long e-books. I learned about flex because it came with CS5 (ouch). I have tried the learn flex in a week tutorial and the flex 4 bible and I’ve learned the most doing what I am now… winging it trying to made a random word generator for conlangs. Should have just gone back to my roots, i.e. poke around until it does what you want.
There are three major things that have pissed me off thus far in my adventure to find instructional materials. First, a lot of online “tutorials” and “instructional videos” are actually just more advertising of the new features. Specifically, only those in CS5. These are not helpful at all. I don’t care about the complicated shiny new features as much the basic ones. I suppose it figures, since it is advertising after all. The other is quick-reference type books. They are like costly, full-color help files. Not very useful. And the next, the cost of computer books. I visited Powell’s technical books and found exactly what I expected: The books for the new version are too expensive, the older versions are a bit less expensive, and the books a few years old are dirt cheap. And it’s hard to know when a book is worth the money. I already know how to use some of the software a little bit, so any book written for peabrains is not going to cut it.
