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What Kind of Books do You Want?
ctrimble asks: "I'm the acquisitions editor for a technical publishing company (not the one with the animals, but we have had six of our books reviewed favourably, here on Slashdot) and part of my job is to determine what books my company should publish. This consists, mainly, of me sitting in my apartment eating peanut butter sandwiches, reading Slashdot,
and writing perl scripts that generate titles in a Madlibs type fashion: "Hacking Ruby for Midgets" (forthcoming in July). Unfortunately, there's a bit of an impedance mismatch between my methodology and filling the needs of the programming community. Market research is tough to do in tech books since you need to forcast about a year in advance. So, let me pose the question to you -- what kind of books do you want? What spots do you see as needing to be filled? For that matter, do you even want dead-tree books, or are eBooks and/or online documentation sufficient?"
I love dead tree programming books. And O'Reilly is the only one who seems to deliver the kind of books i like. I don't want to reference a book on a secondary monitor. :/
I would like to see some more in depth books about programming, bioinformatics and statistics. So far, the only books out there - that I know about - are pretty basic.
A book on how to configure management would be useful. By "configure management", I mean:
-describe typical management structures
-explore how decisions are made
-attempt to aggregate and parametrize hierarchical processes, such that one can start referring to them by their "Pattern"-name shorthand.
-discuss what the managed can and cannot do to influence these decision-making structures.
Remain calm! All is well!
What *I* want are "pocket" ie small books with clear-cut examples of useable code. I switch between Perl, C, C++, Java, etc all the time, and it get frustrating when you forget a certain syntax or way of doing something. Either ONE book with lots of basic syntax examples, or many small books for each language!
I know LOTS of CS students who would buy them.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Mod this up. This is a great idea for a book. The problems would need to expose the working of Java and not be some random problem. There are great problems posted on comp.lang.lisp often, but these are probably better siuted to Lisp and often involved some novel Lisp feature that makes the problem absurdly simple. Something like that for Java (or any other language) would be great. Any there any out there for other languages already?
-j
please, dear god, offer RING BOUND versions of your books! I really don't understand why this isn't a common thing, especially among technical references. Standard bindings do not hold up to the abuse that my books take, and are especially annoying if I am trying to work on a piece of code while keeping a reference book open at the same time. Ring bindings allow for books to lie flat on a desk, instead of flopping closed. To get the same effect from a normally bound book, you practically have to break the binding.
Just a thought. I'd probably own more books if they were just easier to use while doing actual work.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
although slightly off-topic, i would love a book that i could lie flat on my desk...
I'm being quite general, but I think there's really a lot of OS books out there. How to run your OS, Securing your OS, Being One With Your OS, etc.
I'm looking for more cutting edge development kind of books. XML-RPC, PHP, PHP-GTK and any other web/internet high level coding language.
Give me something new, something cutting edge, something that I can read/browse through, and will help me pick up new languages quickly and make me more efficient.
Sort of the opposite of the dummies. Something that assumes you already have an idea about the subject, but dont know excatly how to go about doing it. Something the reverse of the normal teaching method. FOr instance, im trying to learn pearl right now. The thing is all the books start out at the very basic, and go to the complicated. I would like somehting that takes a complex example and breaks it down in a logical manner. Yes, i can do this on my own, but itd be nice to have it set up that way in a book.
ANd im quite happy with electonic verisons, as long as theyre vaguely palm friendly.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
First off, I want dead trees (in book form, not lying around). Second, I'd like to get a decent book on Satellite Data Communications that is
:)
1) inexpensive,
2) not a textbook, and
3) covers the topic from a high level (basic information) to mid level installer/integrator). I don't need the math involved.
All I've found are propellerhead type textbooks (at $80+). I want the Cliff's Notes version
Chris
- No color pages unless they are absolutely, unquestionably necessary
- No CD-ROMs full of code when a Web site would do the job better
If I must spend oodles of money on a computer-programming book, I'd prefer it be the smallest quantity of oodles possible.
I'd like a good book on deploying kerberos in a corporate network. The one book I found in my extensive search (amazon) yielded a single book that got mostly negative reviews from the 5 or so people who reviewed it on amazon.
4 4/ qid=1013025758/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_3_1/104-3227082-325 3536
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/02013792
Subtopics:
- configuring kerberos in various types of network configurations. Case study sort of analysis of how kerberos has actually been deployed in real world installations. Including the applications that use it.
- How and what applications it integrates with.
- How and/or to what extent can the MIT krb5 implementation be integrated w/ windows 2000.
- How to kerberize an application. Best practices/strategies for integration.
jason
- No power source needed.
- Less fragile.
- Less chance of data loss through accident or negligence.
- Losing one physical book denies access to that book; losing your eBook reader denies access to all eBooks.
- They smell nice.
- They look pretty lining bookshelves.
Disadvantages?I would love to see a book on practical Content Management. Maybe covering the ZOPE CMF, but also looking at the issues invloved, workflow, edititing models, etc etc.
Maybe looking at some of the more established systems (Story server, Spectra), but also looking at Jakarta, Tomcat, Velocity, Jetspeed and Turbine.
I'd like to see one like:
Windows Administrator's guide to Red Hat Linux
Something that'd use the knowledge that many Windows NT/2000/XP domain administrators already have, but relate it to the Linux way of doing things. Have the book set up so that you look to the area you'd find the equivalent setting in Windows, and it'd tell you what the Red Hat equivalent was.
I'm not trying to say Red Hat is the only distribution, and I actually prefer debian myself, but it's the most widely known, and would be a good place to start for a book like this.
Such a book would be nice, because it could be written above the "Linux for dummies" level, since it would assume the reader has some technical skills, but would ease the transition to a new system.
I do Windows support for a living, and there are a lot of things that I can do quite quickly in Windows, but I wind up kind of lost trying to find them in Linux, even simple things like changing the resolution/refresh rate/color depth of my display.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
I would like to see an entire book based on "Cool Things with X"
Most of what I've seen written about X is a short overview in a "Learning Linux" book or 7 volume programming manuals. There doesn't seem to be anything in between. The book should explain, in detail, the X config files, the startup files, stuff to do with the client and server. Maybe touch on window managers.
Answer questions such as "Can I just run one X server on my network instead of on every host to save disk space?" or "Can I display a window running on one host on another host?".
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ASCII art?? I thought it was a REGULAR expression
I think it's safe to say that we don't want (or need) any more "How to Be An Unleashed Dummy In 21 Days" books.
Rather than Yet Another Computer Book that simply cats the "--help" into a book, I'd like to see a revolution in the computer book template. Oh, sure, a book that explains what each and every function in PHP does is helpful, but I can get that online.
How about a case study book? A series of case study books?
I'd like to see a section in every book titled, "These things will likely shaft you".
Fictionalize a manual. The Adventures of Nerd Man. (okay, this one is reachy)
Best yet, I'd like to read a book that doesn't have this damn phrase in it: "... but that is beyond the scope of this book..." Usually, that's the part that I'm stuck on.
You can probably get a thousand concepts from just reading HOWTOs and grepping for that phrase. Those are the parts where the medium-level people (most of the population) are stuck.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
How about a book of just general programming problems. The reader is free to use whatever tools he/she chooses to solve the problem. There is a serious lack of these kinds of books for novice programmers. In order for a novice to grow his experience, he must solve simple problems and gradually work through tougher problems. The book could also have an accompanying website where readers can post their solutions so programmers can discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, language, etc.
There is only one such book that I know of. "The Programmers Challenge" published by TAB Books (out of print). Solutions are given in BASIC, C, and Pascal but I've worked through a few of them with perl and taken a stab at solving them with Javascript.
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ASCII art?? I thought it was a REGULAR expression
Hmm..
If I'm thinking tech, I like to be at my computer or whatever I am thinking about (Battlebots, ussually), so I guess I have to say that I preffer ebooks/online books for technical reading. I've carried numerous heavy tomes with them animals on them to and from work, and in all honesty, I would find it easier if they were either on my webserver or somewhere universally accessible (palm, whatever). I find that I very rarely read them in transit or when I am not at the pc.
I don't want to rent Ebooks, though. I want ot buy them. And I want free updates. And I still want my fiction in the old rag form. I've spent hours in the past couple of days reading Dune again, and no eye strain. If I tried to do that with my crt (I know, someone will say 'I don't get monitor burn..' your display is probably better than mine.. get over it).. well, I think my eyes would bleed.
As for content, cover fairly narrow topics with a high degree of focusm and don't make mistakes that I am going to catch. If it's a technical book, make sure that the code example that are supposed to compile do. I've had too many agravating evenings with various language books (from which I have learn most of my '31337' skills) busting my ass trying to figure out what I did wrong, only to find out that my refference was flawed.
How about a book going the other way? I usually try to stay far, far away from Windows admin tasks, but the generally low quality of Windows admins means that I'm often left on my own since the problems I'm solving rarely fit into the point-and-click world they live in.
/etc/init.d, but what's the details?
There are books that attempt to explain simple Linux tasks to Windows users, but don't seem to be any books that discuss advanced Windows topics to Linux/Unix users. E.g., I know that the "system tray" is similar to our
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Let me explain what I mean. I'd love to see a book on 3D game programming they way it ought to be done--by talented, dedicated, game developers at actual game development companies, not hacks who've been doing it for a while in the basement who believe they have enough skills to write a book on it.
Tradeoffs, design choices, speed enhancements, math optimizations, etc., that sort of thing. A book where the writer sits in with a game development team on a project and shows the code along with the thought process behind the code itself. Giving formulas for physics equations is great, but showing how developers in the real world use them and how they use them to animate their objects would be even better.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
LDAP LDAP LDAP!!!! God, there needs to be a universal book showing multiple platforms (Linux, Solaris, AIX, MacOS X), multiple servers (OpenLDAP, iPlanet, etc), and how to set them up for authentication, mail directories, mount points, hosts, etc..... I've been through multiple books and how-to's so far, and none truly explains how to authenticate multiple platforms. They concentrate on how to compile and/or install, and assume you can get the rest from there!
I'd very much like to see...
Unix Hackers Guide to Mac OS X
Written for the experienced Unix user who is unfamiliar with the mac life. Various topics might include things like:
- How the Aqua configuration dialogs interface with basic system configuration files.
- Where configuration information is stored.
- Where to find mounted volumes in the filesystem.
- Command line alternatives to GUI-level actions (specifically configuration type things, not just file manipulation)
- use of the 'defaults' command
- enabling the root account
- "Where is gcc/cc?!"
- How network interfaces are managed (including how this interracts with the 'Locations' dialog and autoconfigure functions. What process mantains this? (i'm still looking for an answer to this one))
- Modifying bootup scripts in a 'safe' way that will survive an OS update.
There are countless other possible topics. Basically everything the experienced unix hacker needs to know in order to quickly become comfortable with Mac OS X.
-acet
I'm in the world of research and we've got a publication called "current protocols in ...." There are several of this type. they come in binders and the pages can be swapped out.
as new techniques are introduced and refined.
what about printing the next generation programming book like that. then pages can be added, corrected what have you. This way the buyer gets a book with a longer shelf life, boy does that sound funny.
Sell a binder with the base book. Then periodically release new chapters, via pdf for example. updates and corrections could be distributed off the net. and if there is a section somebody really needs, they whip out 4 or 5 bucks and get the section. somebody else might not need that section so they don't get it.
This way you could almost have a customized book.
just my nickel...
chris worth
I think that the Histroy of computing is one of the coolest subjects out there. I wish that more books would be written on the history of computing, and the history of different fields of computing because it really is so facinating. The more technical the better, because it is interesting the techniques that are laughable and the techniques that we still use.
Books on genuises are cool. I did an essay once, and it was facinating. The public thinks that genuises are born with some 'gift' (thanks Good Will Hunting, thanks A Beautiful Mind). The truth is that most genuises have a very interesting history of focus, drive, and luck. I would love to spend a few hours reading about Bill Joy, what an ass kicker.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Think Like a Programmer: Wrapping your mind around code and other computer conundrums
This book teaches a non-programmer with no experience what sorts of questions to think in terms of when trying to write software. It shows how to think of things in a modular, abstracted way. It also shows how to make simple data structures. I am imagine it as a companion to a nutshell book for a intro CS course or a person trying to learn on their own.
Concise Sexy C
A book that impresses tons of C idioms that make code smaller, simpler to read, self-documenting, and usually faster. From ugly to elegant. Gives good questions to ask yourself to pare down code to a more simple, elegant form.
Developing Beauty-Sense
How to gain the experiences necessary in a craft to tell what's "beautiful" in that sphere of creation. How to watch a pratictioner of the field to tell what is beautiful in your design and what is an ugly hack. That is the stage where you know that you really have a skill down to the point where you are respectable, or at least on the road to being so. This book could be on a paticular skill, or general. Either way I would kill for it.
Coding Standards: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Have you ever spent days going through "updating code documention" after a project because there was too much to change while you went along? Have you ever just plain ignored the standard becuase it didn't tell anyone anything important? Have you ever seen standards where there were often 3 times as many MANDATED boilerplate lines of comments above functions as there were lines of code in the function? Have you ever seen standards for Java and C++ written by C programmers with no understanding of OO principles? This book is for you. It goes over what adds to programmer productivity and what takes away. It shows how to write tools to make documentation of functions and classes painless. It shows how to use existing tools like "indent" to also help documentation efforts. There are special sections near the end that have full bodied examples of good, bad and ugly coding standards from the real world. In these sections there is commentary about why these standards are bad or good, and what goals they are trying to accomplish. Bomus material on explaining the implications of a coding standard to your boss.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
Debian's got a lot of (nifty) quirks, few of which are well-documented. Many tasks are automated by Debian-specific tools; but good luck discovering those tools on your own. Many configuration files have been modularized or otherwise tweaked as compared to their Red Hat counterparts. It would be nice to have a system admin book that focused on the Debian Way of doing things.
--
CPAN rules. - Guido van Rossum
I'm talking about a book that takes you through the fundamentals of running a huge software project. Reasonable examples on how to use autoconf and automake. Descriptions of how to set up a CVS repository. How to get the most of out the gcc compiler. How to handle templates. There are plenty of books on how to program, and plenty on high level software management, but very few on using modern gnu tools to get the job done. That is what I want to see.
The middle mind speaks!
Books have to be paper.... laptops are too hard to read and flip from one section to another quickly and batterys die.
.NET" by David S. Platt, great book and not completely dry.
Books need to have some humor, example "Introducing Microsoft
Books need to have more examples. Personally I learn by example, by taking what someone else has done and riping it up, to make it do something else.
Finally topics on protocol design, distributed computing, client/server, server/server, client/client, load-balancing.
Also stay away from books that beat a topic to death and go off on a tangent to make it thicker. Example, a friend of mine, Bob Summers, wrote the "Official Microsoft NetMeeting 2.1 Book" and its 350 pages.... do I really need to read 350 pages on NetMeeting... the book goes to far into how NetMeeting actually works from a low level than on how to actually use it.
"Times may change, but standards must remain the same." - George Carlin.
Specifically I'd be interesting in the Bonobo aspects of GNOME. Perhaps a book looking at Bonobo in comparison with COM and the Star Office object model.
1. Large SOC design: a guide for project managers
2. Embedded systems using ARM processors
3. Embedded systems using Linux
4. Verification of Large SOC designs
5. Synthesis of large digital designs.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
A *solid* book on CVS is badly needed. Yes I've seen Open Source Dev. w/ CVS, and the CVS Pocket Reference. (And I'm not even going to mention the Cederqvist -- that thing is just *awful* (IMHO).)
I want something that gives me a nonsense, cut-to-the chase, explanation on CVS. Especially one that will do when you don't have a CVS expert around. When first trying to learn CVS, I would have paid good money for a book with just this sentence alone: 'never mind checkout past setup -- and update alone is just stupid. 'update -Pd' is really what you want'.
I love CVS but it would hard to deny it's one of the more archaic programs still out there. Some may love that, but when I have serious work to do, fucking around with CVS is not high on my priority list.
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
I think a lot of people feel the same way you do. I used to be an editor at a Computer Science publishing company (also not the one with the animals) and most of our books had a useful lifespan of 2 - 3 years, at most. They get outdated awfully fast, and since our books were written by academics, they took an *awfully* long time to write.
We had only one or two books that were an exception to this. One was an Introduction to Computer Science Using Pseudocode, which we reprinted dozens of times for more than ten years since its first publishing date. For all I know, they may still be selling this book. I think the other book was an intro to the theory of computation.
Of course, from the publishers' perspective, they want books that will be outdated in a few years, because when the next thing comes along, you have to buy a new book. This is why docs that come with a piece of software often have free updates on line, but books you buy independently come out with new editions. For a software company a book is a cost center. For a publishing company, it's a profit center.
Doing my part to piss off the religious right.
What I would have called the company up to say if it hadn't been based in Taiwan: Hello? I DON'T HAVE A DAMN COMPUTER! HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO READ THIS MANUAL?!?
It's just a good thing that I had no trouble whatsoever installing the board. (It was a Shuttle 555A, still going after 5 or 6 years. It's now my wife's, who uses it for nothing but word processing and websurfing.)
And the brethren went away edified.
You bring up good points, the binding make a big difference in the usibility of books, epecially refernce types. The company I work for produces legal reference books, and uses 3 ring binders that are about the size of a normal book. They have the benifits of a durable cover, they lay flat nicely on a desk, shelf nicely and have a readable spine.
Also they are extensible...
Many of our books come as a subscription that includes monthly updates. Would'nt that be cool for technical books as well? What's that your linux book doesn't cover a feature in the latest kernel? order (or download & print) the new chapter jsut written about it.
We also put out corrections this way, or you can add your own pages, or even blank pages for notes.
i have walked down train tracks, walked down train tracks, drunk at 3 a.m. it not magic, it's no great trick, w
It featured a dozen authors, but the book was coherent. The CD was PACKED full of AWSOME stuff (some was crap but not much). If not for a book like that, I would have never been writing my own games for Mac.
Apple announces MacOS X...
Uh-oh. Where is my Sound Manager? QuickDraw has been replaced? How do I guratentee I'll have enough CPU time (or does that even matter anymore)? How do I do refresh sync with the Vertical Retrace Manger now? Can Quartz do what I want and how?? OpenGL??? Networking???? INTERUPTS???? AUUUGHHH!! :-)
I hate wading through Apple's docs and source code. Dont' get me wrong, they're great if you know what you're looking for, but to go and teach yourself the entire thing? No, I'd rather have a nice big book, preferably written by people who know what they're doing. And can explain it in a manner that makes sense. You'd need chapters on (of course first off) good program design and applying it to games. Stuff about CoreGraphics and CoreAudio would be nice, along with how to generate sound and use raw frame buffers, and please, how do I sync to the damn VBL? Networking... how the hell do you even do that in MacOS X? Is OpenTransport even still there? OpenGL... been meaning to learn it, lots of example code out there...for Windows and Linux. Great, how does this appl to OS X? How should the screen/window be set up?
In case you couldn't tell, I'd rather not code in Carbon, as it's not as full featured as Cocca seems to be. Therefore, a chapter on the basics of Objective C would be nice as well.
Plus a million more questions I'm sure a ton of people want answered without wading through the Apple Source Vault Of Doom(TM) ;-)
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
No you don't..
if stack.pop() = 42 then call b()
42=[b;!]?
>>++++[<++++++++++>]<++[-<->] #
Anyone should be able to understand, and write, the first, and thus most "normal" languages. The second is FALSE, and not quite as intuitive. =) The third is brainfuck2, and doesn't even contain an if-statement (since bf2 doesn't have if-statements). It also doesn't actually call "b", since bf2 doesn't have functions.. But it will (if I remembered the syntax right) leave currentbucket 0 if currentbucken started out as 42. (And anything non-0 if it didn't.)