Many of us have done this at one time or another, but we're ashamed to admit it. Late at night, the blinds are down, the lights are out, and we close the door to our room with one grubby hand at the keyboard and the other one feverishly clutching a credit card.
My curiosity and excitement had gotten the better of me. I purchased an ebook verson of Extending and Embedding Perl.
I've been dying to buy the book, but wasn't aware that Manning was offering electronic versions of it (in convenient PDF format, no less!). Plus, the offer a nice discount on the actual book if you have already bought the ebook, so it's a win-win.
Why a guilty pleasure, though? I create web-based applications for a living. I know how difficult they are to do well, much less to do securely, though I submit that "well" pretty much encompasses "securely". I often get help requests from programmers working at large companies and I shudder in horror at their production code and the security holes it exposes. Further, I hear so often about Web sites getting hacked because of poor code that I can't help but wonder why anyone would want to shop online.
Update: Let's discuss irony. In light of the contents of this post, I find it mildly ironic (and very unamusing) that I just received my second receipt from Manning -- for the same book. It's the same order id, a different authorization code and some of the data looks odd. I've sent them an email, but I am not happy about this.
If you've been reading my journal, you've probably realized that I am having very weird money issues right now, despite doing nothing wrong. Aargh!
