Frank,

Where do you think your product line is weak? To be somewhat (only slightly) more precise: In which areas would you like somewhat obsolete material updated? I'm somewhat less concerned with the absence of O'Reilly titles in areas that O'Reilly has never covered than I am with the fact that certain topics haven't been updated in some time (though I continue to be impressed with O'Reilly titles in newly emerging areas of the field). I'm thinking especially of the X programming and reference manuals. Normally Tim can say that he's had difficulty getting authors to update their work, or words to that effect. One twist in this area is that Tim co-authored some of these books. I understand he's busy. Mostly I was hoping for a rundown of titles (or more general subjects) that have not been updated in some time that we would like to see. Honestly, I anxiously await the arrival of new titles on the web site, and I was hoping to goad a few more out of him.

-Mark Gordon

Mark:

What a dangerous question! Weak product lines, indeed!

Late at night, in the privacy of my home, while my family sleeps peacefully unawares, I make lists of weak areas for us. I define them differently each time: areas where we don't publish and ought to; topics for which we've signed many different authors but never got a completed book; areas where we have conspicuous and obvious gaps in an otherwise admirable program. Mostly, though, I use the definition you suggest: books that need to be updated and haven't been. I furrow my brow for some minutes; then I rip up the list, feed it to the dog, and go back to bed.

Many of the books on my list are from our Unix and sys-admin lines. These books tend to be older and their authors or editors have moved to new jobs. (In many cases, Tim or Dale Dougherty was the original editor in these lines.) Now that Linux and FreeBSD have become popular, and Unix servers have extended their dominance, these books, however old, are again in demand. We've updated a bunch of them (Unix Power Tools, Learning the vi Editor, TCP/IP, and DNS and Bind, for example) but there are many more we need to do. Look soon for a revised Unix in a Nutshell.

There are other lines just about to be out of date. Java 1.2 recently became Java 2, and our many Java books will need to be updated to reflect these changes. (With Java's new features, we need to publish new books as well.) I mentioned in an earlier column that our Java Power Reference product covers Java 2 in a quick-reference, easily searchable format; but all our books will soon need to reflect the Java 2 technology.

Windows looms on the horizon. With Windows 2000 on the way, we know that we're going to have to revise both our Windows books and our NT books. In typical O'Reilly fashion, we're still working on Windows 98; but we know that 2000 is around the corner, and we're starting to prepare for it.

We're about to hire a revisions editor to start to get this process under control. Most editors are like semi-conductors and move only in the direction of new technology, never back. We'd like to have someone care for our older books; we have evidence that readers like them, after all, while a new book is always a pig in a poke.

Frank Willison
Editor-in-Chief

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