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Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

drdobbs.com

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Re: Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

#111
post #60

I'd been meaning to pick up a new language, and a few weeks ago I pared down my list of choices to two languages: Scala and Go. Then I went looking for "official" tutorials/references. For Scala I found Scala by Example , a 145 page PDF that comes with the Scala docs. For Go, I found the Go tutorial -- a very short tutorial with a bunch of examples. I picked Go because, seriously, I don't have time to read 145 pages…

Had the same issue, same two languages. Google Go still feels far from prime time, so I settled on Scala. Got David Pollak's "Beginning Scala" book, Googled a lot and after several days of coding it clicked. Well worth the effort! The Web frameworks are not yet there (Lift is complex, Play is slow), but I learnt a lot. I still keep my eye on Go, code most of the time C++/C++0x, some projects in Scala, and hope one da…

Google research got to the same conclusion: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/03/google_paper_on_cplu...

Re: Blunt and necessary review of programming language books.

#112
post #71

I've been begging publishers to let me have a go at a ~100 page F# tutorial book, but they've told me again and again that books without a wide enough profile on the shelf just won't sell. It's sad really. I hope ePublishing fixes this.

If you can put together a $30 F# book at 100 pages, I would consider buying it. There are a number of self-publishing options out there, I believe. Let Over Lambda is a Lulu print, I believe. I am sure that you could find someone to serve as editor for the book as well. (there's a consulting idea: book editor! )

Thanks. I'll think hard about doing this and see what happens.
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