Hi,

I understand that subscribing to a magazine can be a bit indimidating
when one has little or no experience of reading. To overcome your fear,
I suggest that you buy a magazine at a newsstand and try reading it in
the train. Begin with one magazine per month (a monthly is adequate to
this aim--how about a magazine about Java programming?), then one per
week (Newsweek for instance). In no Time at all you'll be buying and
reading your magazines in the train very naturally. Just then you'll
feel at ease to consider a subscription.

I don't think reading magazines on trains is a particularly good way to
learn about programming, because it is difficult to try things out.

Your choice of magazine should depend on what you want to learn about next:

1. Computing in general: IEEE Computer, Communications of the ACM.

2. Some specialized computing fields - pick a field, and search the ACM
and IEEE web sites to pick a publication and/or special interest group.

3. The business of the users of your programs - find out what the users
read. If you are writing programs that are used e.g. by accountants, it
can be very useful to learn some accounting jargon and what accountants
care about. You do need to look at some examples to make sure the
material is not too technical in the users' specialty.

Patricia