IT Reference Posters?

bighead314 asks: "Maybe I haven't had enough coffee, or my brain power has gone down while working through my lunch break, but I cannot seem to find a good source for getting command/syntax reference posters for our office. We are looking for some SQL, UML, Oracle 10, and other reference posters to plaster on the walls for quick reference. However, the search for a site/company that sells more than just one poster has yielded nothing. Anyone out there have some good links or know of places were these can be purchased without having to buy 10 accompanying SQL Server magazine subscriptions just for the insert?"

Posters Usefullnes?

[jellomizer]

I don't think these posters are useful anymore. It is much easier to search the net and find your answer then trying to eye a font 10 keyword in a huge 24"x36" paper.

Re:Do It Yourself Suggestion

[Red Flayer]

I would agree with you. My only addition is that this is the kind of project I'd farm out to an intern -- too time-intensive for management or regular staff to be doing.

At my company I've talked to the art & production departments to have their interns collaborate with mine to get very professional looking reference pieces done.

Sounds like a business opportunity to me

[Jakhel]

I've found that there are alot of things that are lacking in the IT world, especially in the way of quick reference documentation for specific industries (healthcare, finance, etc.) that have standards which only someone with experience in those industries would know about. It would be nice to have a quick reference guide (like a data dictionary but a little more in depth) that explains some of this ESPECIALLY where standardized data is concerned. This could be a nice little side project/business for you if you can find someone to team up with who knows about syntax. Throw up a small website or pitch it to a publishing company and you could have yourself a good second source of income. Think of those little laminated cheat sheets sold for high school calculus or physics classes.

Re:Posters Usefullnes?

[gfxguy]

I've seen this kind of response a lot when people are reviewing or asking about books.

Frankly, while I can sometimes find something I need quickly enough, the books and posters and quick reference cards usually end up being more than worth their cost. I could give specific annecdotal evidence, but don't want to get off topic. Suffice it to say that I've discovered that I can find a lot of things within minutes (if I had a quick reference, it would have been more like a minute or less), and there are some things that I just couldn't find, or were out of date, or simply wasn't clear (because someone without technical writing experience wrote it). A $50 book has saved me hours and hours of wasted time.

All I'm saying is that these posters and quick reference cards and books are still certainly quite useful, IMO.

Make some mook do it

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could post on slashdot about a paper solution and get hundreds of links from people who are willing to show you how much better google is to paper... Oh wait...

Re:Posters Usefullnes?

[ranton]

Like another responder mentioned, the increase in productivity from a poster (or books) is definetly worth the cost. Even if you buy one for $20, that is incredibly cheap for what you are getting. Lets say it is a poster of the .Net 2.0 framework. You will probably be able to use it for at least 3 years until you start using the next framework. That is less than $7 a year, or $0.56 a month. If you pay a programmer only $40k a year, that is $120k over 3 years. $20 is a small price to pay.

That $40k programmer is making about $20 an hour. If that poster saves him 1 hour over 3 years it is worth the money. That means that if he saves himself only 2 seconds each week for 3 years, the poster was worth it.
--