Before the internet, in the 80s and 90s, engineers who wanted to pick up a new skill usually turned to O'Reilly's famous color-coded "Animal Books."

O' Reilly’s books cover hundreds of technologies from Python to Oracle. Every title famously has an engraved picture of an animal on its cover. But now that the internet has put most technical information a Google search away, O'Reilly books are no longer the first place young programmers turn.

The animal pictures have certainly made an impact on the next generation of programmers, however, and after originator and programmer Ben Halpern created an online generator, forums have sprouted up to post parodies of O'Reilly's famous animal books.

Here are some of our favorites: