I’ve been a subscriber to Dr. Dobbs Journal now for so long I can’t even remember when I started reading it.  I’d guess that I started in the early 80’s sometime.  Back then I also read Byte, Computer Language, and a few others.  Over the years, one by one they all slowly declined and went away.  I can remember how exciting it was when I opened my mailbox and there was a new fresh glossy magazine in there.  I’d read them all from cover to cover, often learning about things that I often hadn’t heard of before.  It helped me get a much broader view of the computer industry and what was happening, programming techniques, data structures, new languages like Modula 2, and the list goes on.  I can still remember the day I read about the new Motorola 68000 processor and how it could address a crazy 16MB of RAM, more than you could even imagine having in those days.  I studied data structures, read about game theory, new languages, techniques, and directions in software engineering. 

So it was a sad thing when I got a notice in the mail that Dr. Dobbs was no longer going to be a print magazine, it would be a feature in Information Week.  I had thought it might happen, as each month it was getting thinner to the point where I was wondering how much longer it would be before the end.

For me this marks the end of the print computer magazine era, at least the last of the old school software magazines.  In a way I think it’s another indication of the direction we are going, where everyone searches for what they want to see, but there really isn’t as much of a way to just browse and explore topics your not familiar with.  Sure you can read blog posts, RSS feed, and browse sites, but how many times do you really dig into a topic and read an entire article that wasn’t something you were already looking for.  While it may be much more efficient to get information over the Internet, it seems to be more of bits and bites, not really conducive to sitting back and soaking up a topic.  And its just not the same as sitting on the back porch on a nice morning, with the dog sniffing around the yard, a steaming cup of coffee in your hand, and exploring a magazine that may reveal the next topic to peak your interest that you didn’t even know you’d find. 

So long Dr. Dobbs, I will always have fond memories of the diverse topics I learned reading through the pages of your publication.