From: Jagadeesh Venugopal
To: ask_tim@oreilly.com
Subject: The unified book on Internet programming?
Tim,
There is today a virtual explosion of Internet technologies. From DHTML to XML to various Internet frameworks, to Microsoft, there is getting to be way too much to follow by reading up books on individual technologies.
How about a book on Internet Software Development that does a sweep of the entire Internet programming landscape in the typical O'Reilly way? I am looking for a book that will tell me what each technology is, where it is at, what it will do for my clients, and some resources if I want to go deeper.
A book that does this would, I think, be a surefire hit. We have way too many books that go into very gory details but none that talks at a broad-enough level that makes the reader understand most of what is out there.
- Jagadeesh
PS: If you do decide to follow up on my idea, I would really appreciate a nice O'Reilly t-shirt (XL) :-)
Jagadeesh,
Thanks for the suggestion. I have a couple of comments:
1) "Survey" type books rarely sell well, despite their seeming appeal. Books that go into the gory details seem to be what most people want. (Of course, many publishers promise gory details, but don't deliver! I'm amazed by the number of books that promise "information you can't find anywhere else" and then repeat vendor documentation almost word for word, or simply walk through the obvious features of screen shot after screen shot!
At O'Reilly, we try to target books that can go deep into a specific topic. We want a book that will stand up to the test of time, books that people will wear out using it again and again, not books that someone will scan through and then throw aside. Consider how many people are on their second or third copy of Programming Perl, having completely worn out their earlier copies through hard use.
One big problem with survey or overview books is that they very quickly become dated. What's more, I tend to hold by the advice Tevye gave in "Fiddler on the Roof": "Good news will stay and bad news will refuse to leave." The flood of new products and technologies can seem overwhelming, but if you have a little patience, the important ones will sort themselves out. You'll hear about both the ones that people love and the ones that they hate but can't seem to do without. And the ones that don't meet a real need will just sort of fade.
For example, a year or so back, there was a whole flood of "push" products, and people wondered why O'Reilly didn't publish books on them. We were waiting to see if people really used them...and as it turned out, they didn't. The best way to separate vendor and media hype from what you really need to know is to listen to your peers. What are they really using?
That's how we knew about the Internet and the Web and the importance of Perl long before other publishers. They read the computer rags, and chased the latest announcements from vendors; we listened to experienced users.
All that being said, there may be a place for an In a Nutshell book on a range of internet programming technologies. If you've seen Webmaster in a Nutshell, you know that there we tried to put together a compact quick reference for webmasters. There might be an analogous book for internet programmers. We'll think on it.
2) We sometimes create little survey booklets as giveaways through participating bookstores. For example, we did one on UNIX and X some years ago, and currently have one on Java. It might be something we could put together for Internet/Web technologies. These booklets are designed to educate both booksellers and customers about how various technologies fit together, and what we consider some of the best books on each topic (and not just our own books, but those of our competitors as well.) We've been talking about doing some more of these, and we might just take on your topic as a good one. So thanks for the suggestion.
3) This is a more general point about the many wonderful suggestions we get from readers for new books.
It takes two things to make an O'Reilly book: a good idea and a good author. Unlike many other publishers, we don't have a stable of hack writers who will throw together a superficial book on the topic-du-jour. We look for people who are really ahead of the curve, who've mastered a topic and have insights and experience to share with our readers.
There are many topics we'd love to have books on for which we have just not found the right author.
So keep the suggestions coming...but also let us know if you think there's someone who would be just the right person to write a book you'd like to see from us. This might be the person who seems to always have the clear and coherent answer to questions on a newsgroup or mailing list, or someone you know at work who always gets the hard questions.
-- Tim
P.S. -- The free t-shirt is in the mail.
