xml-dev - RE: good book on XML

["Box, Don" <dbox@develop.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rich Anderson [mailto:rja@arpsolutions.demon.co.uk]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2000 6:49 PM
> To: Box, Don; xml-dev@xml.org
> Subject: Re: good book on XML
> 
> > Esposito), but the average wrox book cover has more 
> head-shots than Cindy
> > Crawford's portfolio.
> 
> Do people care how many people write a book ? 

As I tried to state earlier, it depends on your definition of "book." A book
like Advanced CORBA Programming in C++ couldn't be written by 15 authors.
Nor could The Practice of Programming. Nor could Philip & Alex's Guide to
Web Publishing. Nor could Applied Cryptography. Maybe I'm overly romantic,
but I feel a book should contribute something to the discussion at large. A
book should shape the reader's understanding and provoke further
investigation. 

> I dont think 
> so.  Everything
> else in the world ( techologies, standards etc etc) aren't 
> written by one
> person so why should books be any different ?  

My wife just found out she is pregnant. Making a baby only required one
other participant (me), not 15. Why should books be any different? ;-)

> Whats important is that you
> get a book when you need it, it contains content that addresses your
> problems, and that it is co-ordinated.

I think you are referring to documentation. Books like the Henning/Vinoski
book came out after a large portion of the CORBA code of the world had
already been written, yet it will easily outlast all other books that were
available when people "needed it." 

> > in to the XML world. I for one would rather see something 
> coordinated by
> > folks with a grounding in traditional publishing than an ad 
> hoc effort
> 
> I'd go for the opposite, death to all tradional publishers, long live
> e-publishers ;) ;)

I think you are misunderstanding me. I am NOT dismissing the value of
electronic publication of all sorts of content, including book-length works.
However, the fast-turnaround model implied by web-based publishing (and
wrox) is really magazine-like, not book-like. I look at publishing via the
web as a bigger threat to Miller-Freeman, Sys-Con, or Fawcette than to AW,
PH, or O'Reilly.

DB
http://www.develop.com/dbox

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