Re:On Writing Books for Programmers
by ScottWhigham on Friday February 18, 2011 @07:24PM
(#2237882)
This doesn't seem correct to me. This seems exactly opposite of "correct" and feels more like, "This is what I like so therefore it must be 'right'."
Walk into a bookstore or browse an online bookstore. Find the most popular/stocked books. What are they: big, small, in-between? This can't be hard to find out for yourself.
If you truly care about making something that "the people want", then do your research and find out what "the market" is buying; don't just depend on one guy's answer on HN to control how you write/steer your book.
And David - I mean no disrespect by this. I'm not trying to single you out; I feel the same way as you about books I want today. However I do disagree that "people" prefer small books.
Re:On Writing Books for Programmers
by fredoliveira on Friday February 18, 2011 @04:35PM
(#2237372)
Thanks for your thoughts. I do prefer smaller books myself, but I keep seeing people buying large reference books which end up being wasted money in a time of Google search.
That's how I felt when I was a novice. It didn't take to long to realize that most large books are padded with filler though. Not only did I find much of the content useless, I found the lack of concision made them harder to learn from.
do people really prefer smaller books
Absolutely. If I see a large book at the bookstore I don't even bother taking it off the shelf. Reference books are the exception, but I mostly use the web for reference.