Hackershelf
Learning and science
free book collection
SHOW HN2012
532points
121comments
#5of 1,677 in 2012
Top 1%of 2012 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
14 positive, 29 neutral or asking, 6 mixed, 23 critical, out of 72 comments about the project. Thread score -0.12.
Idea: 8 for, 5 againstDesign: 4 for, 7 againstExecution: 0 for, 9 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Useful community resource for free programming books
From 3 comments
Fantastic, thank you very much for this resource. As a programming book junkie, you have truly made my day by providing this. I signed up, and hope the list continues to grow.…
hackNightly on HNI added a book for you. I like the idea and design. I think there should be another column that stores the location to the book. I think that the homepage should just be the link…
jonaldomo on HNGreat start! Looks like you have some great feedback here as well. This is a resource I could see myself coming back to often. One thing I noticed is that if I add a book while…
ryanedick on HN
Nice design and logo
From 2 comments
Design looks pretty good. Is there any reason to require signup to submit a book? Maybe you can just add a captcha for non-logged in users?
aoe on HNBonus points for using the glider logo, will definitely be checking this out in more depth when I get a chance!
MHBerryman on HN
Objections
Some listed books are not actually free
From 2 comments
Nice site, but it seems of the books aren't really free. Code complete and Programming pearls come to mind.
kjetil on HNGood Job. I noticed the book 'Learning Python' is listed there. But it is not available for free download. Should one flag such books (i.e. ones that are not available legally…
sateesh on HN
Duplicate entries appear in listings
From 3 comments
looks like you just got your first dupe. you need some way to flag books for review, so that they can be merged, or deleted if they're spam.
joh6nn on HNNice list. Are duplicate entries accepted? "Eloquent Javascript" has two entries. http://hackershelf.com/book/40/eloquent-javascript/…
prakashk on HNOne thing I noticed was that some books were shown twice on the list. Otherwise, great job!
neilparikh on HN
Pin add-to-shelf control is hard to find
From 2 comments
This is totally awesome! Here is some constructive feedback: It took me 3 visits to the site to figure out how to add something to my shelf. The little pin would probably be…
robdodson on HNNice resource. Quick suggestion: took me a minute to figure out how to add something to my shelf -- you may want to make that pin icon a little more prominent.
arscan on HN
Signup requires email and password unnecessarily
From 2 comments
This is immensely valuable! I do have some critiques of the site, though. - Why do I need a password and email address to keep a list of free books? There's no private…
Dove on HNLooks interesting, but you've got a contradiction on your signup page: the email is obligatory (which I personally don't like), but it says optional inside the text field.
sklipo on HN
Requests
Search function
From 2 comments
This is immensely valuable! I do have some critiques of the site, though. - Why do I need a password and email address to keep a list of free books? There's no private…
Dove on HNI added a couple of books. Seems like this could be a useful resource. A couple of feature requests: Search and ratings. Maybe ratings are what "points" are, but I'm not sure…
zecho on HN
Direct download links and licensing info
From 2 comments
Showing what formats the book is available in would be really helpful. Some of these are not free for download, but only to read online. Licensing info might be useful as well.…
austintaylor on HNNice work! How about download links to PDFs (and other formats if avail)? In my experience quite often links to external sites are down/changed/weird/unclear etc; straight…
tluyben2 on HN
RSS feeds
From 1 comment
would love the ability to subscribe via RSS!
apricot13 on HN
Add essays and research papers
From 2 comments
A nice feature would be the inclusion of essays. I think they should be treated as second class citizens on your site but it could add significant value for people browsing by…
brd on HNHow about research papers, dissertations, and so on? Many are far more informative than when the authors pad the same content to book length. Survey papers are particularly…
silentbicycle on HN
Keep scroll position after adding a book
From 2 comments
Great start! Looks like you have some great feedback here as well. This is a resource I could see myself coming back to often. One thing I noticed is that if I add a book while…
ryanedick on HNThis is great. I am already loving it. Please add more resource types like Essays, Papers etc. One suggestion: After I click the Add to shelf button, page reloads and does not…
theSuda on HN
Questions
How are points assigned
From 1 comment
Nice idea. Two things: 1) How are points assigned? I don't see any place to upvote/downvote, but I see that certain books have points while others do not. 2) There should be a…
lpolovets on HN
Why only free books
From 1 comment
Why only free books? Seems like an arbitrary constraint.
adeelk on HN
Alternatives named
hn-books.com
From 1 comment
Shameless relevant plug: here's the site I set up for community curated startup books that are not free: http://hn-books.com Features include searching for books by the problem…
DanielBMarkham on HN
hackerbooks.com
From 1 comment
Pretty cool! If you'd like I could add your content to http://www.hackerbooks.com/ (and link back of course). Let me know!
thibaut_barrere on HN
The Assayer
From 1 comment
Here is a site that's been around for a while : http://www.theassayer.org/
arjn on HN
Open Advice
From 1 comment
Open Advice (http://open-advice.org/) should fit nicely there: what we would've wanted to know when we started contributing to Open Source
bergie on HN