Are there any decent textbooks for this subject? (1 Viewer)

[Mumma]

Honestly? The shit we get (Heinemann) is completely worthless. It rambles on and on and on about the most pointless shit you can think of, then itll give you a tiny paragraph on what you actually need. The book repeats it self over and over again, everything is ambiguous - 95% of the book is pointless and leads nowhere. Is there a book out there that has ONLY what I need to know, and has in it enough depth so i dont have to waste valuable time in exams trying to make everything up (which suprisingly works - or maybe its not suprising if you read the syllabus, which has the same approximate value of a skidmark on a toilet bowl)?

 

[priesty]

or maybe its not suprising if you read the syllabus, which has the same approximate value of a skidmark on a toilet bowl

that line is absolute GOLD Mumma

yeh, ive been looking around for a decent textbook too.... both books, Jacaranda and Heinemann have serious issues. The people who wrote it were definately on crack.

Oh, and you don't have much competition from me on Monday dude.... i'm screwed for both Ext1 and SDD

 

[syper]

We use a text book by Samuel Davis - it's pretty good.


If you want something that just tells you what you need to know then get an excel study guide or something..

 

[DeathB4Life]

the worthlessness of the Heinemann textbook has been an issue of disussion amoungst me any my fellow classmates several times this year (and last)

you read the first sentence of a paragraph hoping to find the definition of something, instead of tells describes some random situation about what some programmer in india might be thinking when he goes to the bathroom and how it effects his every day life. read the second sentence hoping that it might shed some light upon the first sentence and somehow make it relevent. instead if just continues to blabber.

you have to read through the entire paragraph and somewhere in the middle it gives you about a third of a definition and you have to kind of piece a proper definition together from several sentence spread across an entire page.

i remember trying to study paradigms and all i got out of the book after an hour or so of reading was "a paradign is a method of doing things." freaking great help that is when trying to answer a 10 mark question.

its complete rubbish. im glad i accidently left my textbook in class and it never showed up or else i would have wasted even more time sifting through pure bs.

it has come to my belief that the person who wrote that book was getting paid for every word he added which lead him to write such trash in hopes of making a few more bucks and turning what should be a simple concept into an encrpyted page of irrelevent crap. unfortunately SDD isnt the most popular subject that the average intellect would have knowledge in therefore giving the author of any textbook an excuse to write complete trash with few who can stand in their way and correct them or atleast inform them of their uselessness.

 

[Dongle]

I agree. Heinemann is the crappiest piece of crap that crap authors ever crappily wrote for crappy publishers. Also, that book had like 5 authors, so no wonder it was inconsistent, contradictory and verbose all over the place!

I suggest you use a combination of websites and the Excel Study guide by Geoff Lancaster. It's actually pretty good - there's a glossary and I guess a more comprehensive set of notes and examples.

 

[adgala]

personally i use the sam davis, excel and the heinemann textbook

the sam davis textbook is the best from all of them

but to be honest, the net is the best place to get all the information, there's a lot more industry/theoretical related stuff relevant to the course on the net than in the textbooks if you have the time to get them, just go through the syllabus and google out the the points in the syllabus

 

[ianc]

The excel book is good - pretty much all you need for the HSC

 

[watkinzez]

Hahaha. My teacher wrote the Heinemann book. I'd bet he'd laugh at this.

 

[nato4]

we have fowler as a teacher at school (thats the guy who wrote heinemann) and he's pretty awesome... He's sharp and succinct. i think the only thing we've really used the books for are the exercises. the syllabus you have to admit is pretty hard to write for you have to remember but some points ive found that have made his book worth at least a glance through are:
- look at the students learn stuff at the start of each chapter
- look at the chapter summaries at the end of each chapter
- look out for those bold words in his sentences

ps i can categorically say he's not on crack

 

[*sparklez...]

No.

 

[bipolardragon]

Yeah, my teacher doesnt like any of the text books. He has all of them (hei, jack, excel etc) he has 5 books for SDD year 12 and decided to write his own notes. They are pretty good and to the point. If people want me to, I will ask him if I can post them in the resource section of this site and you guys can prosper from these great notes.

 

[priesty]

Yeah, my teacher doesnt like any of the text books. He has all of them (hei, jack, excel etc) he has 5 books for SDD year 12 and decided to write his own notes. They are pretty good and to the point. If people want me to, I will ask him if I can post them in the resource section of this site and you guys can prosper from these great notes.

YES PLEASE! hahaha

 

[Sleiphnir]

Yeah, my teacher doesnt like any of the text books. He has all of them (hei, jack, excel etc) he has 5 books for SDD year 12 and decided to write his own notes. They are pretty good and to the point. If people want me to, I will ask him if I can post them in the resource section of this site and you guys can prosper from these great notes.

As Priesty said - yeah, posting them would be really helpful (tell us if you post them too)

As for the original question I have the Heinemann, Cambridge and Excel books - for the love of god - do not even consider getting the Cambridge one. It's worse than the Heinemann one.
Excel is definitely more succinct and to the goddamn point. It actually uses the syllabus subheadings so you know that you need to know it.

 

[Hero Of Time]

I agree completely; Heinemann is useless. Currently, I've been reading the Excel book for Software, and it actually explains concepts properly. Maybe you should try reading it also. As for the Preliminary Software textbook by Heinemann, I believe it was at the beginning of Chapter 4, your meant to "learn" about deskchecking. It doesn't explain how to deskcheck at all, the most it had proved was how stupid the authors are.

Did anyone else find a problem with that part specifically?

 

[Hedgy]

Finding this thread interesting,
likemindly our teacher choose to write his own notes too........

 

[Beege]

im gonna write study notes from the excel book and also my teacher's notes

 

[ianc]

We were given the heinemann, i dont think i even opened it after the first time i looked at it....

I made all my notes for the half yearlies, trials and HSC from Excel

 

[Hedgy]

"Beege im gonna write study notes from the excel book and also my teacher's notes"

oih share share share :wave:

 

[klufs2003]

i found that the excel textbook was good to start with as it is alot simpler than heinemann, i used excel to get a good general understanding of the syllabus dot points and once i got that i found that heinemann was good as u got closer to the hsc coz it gave me a deeper understanding of the dot points which u need in the exams. Initially heinemann is shit coz its so fukn confusing but once uve got a better understanding of the course its a pretty good text

 

[Hedgy]

Just got the excel not so long ago.
It does grey in your general knowledge,without been confusing at all .. but their are definately area's that need supplmenting cause they are lacking.

thnx klufs2003