Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
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Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
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Re: Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
#2I remember that my copy of Geoff Chappell's "DOS Internals" had a floppy disk with the source code taped into the last page. Still readable after 20 years.
But these times seem over. Today there are too many topics that are not covered by books or don't have proper documentation at all.
Re: Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
#3Was it just me, or did anyone else read the "TL;DR" explaining how to AVOID the antipattern to BE the antipattern?
Re: Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
#4Re: Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
#5I'm reminded of my old (1980s) copy of Tannenbaum's Operating Systems Design and Implementation, which had a _complete_ listing of the Minix kernel as an appendix. I learned a lot from that book, even if I've forgotten much of it in the intervening years. I wish I still had it
Re: Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
#6Was it just me, or did anyone else read the "TL;DR" explaining how to AVOID the antipattern to BE the antipattern?
No? It's in the imperative voice, it wouldn't make sense to read "do this" as a description of an antipattern.
Re: Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
#7I would qualify this by saying yes, put the source code in the book, but only if there is something to learn from reading the code. That used to always be the case, but now there's so much boilerplate required for libraries and frameworks that it's obviously a waste of space to put it there. But if reading and understanding the code is part of the learning process, then yes, it should be inline as part of the experience of reading the book.
Re: Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
#8Just glue an envelope with a CD to the backcover, this is what people were doing before your fancy internets became a thing.
But really, if you a writing a book on a modern language, and your code has external dependencies, chances are it will not build 5 years forward, even if there are no URLs directly in the book.
Re: Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
#9I remember that my copy of Geoff Chappell's "DOS Internals" had a floppy disk with the source code taped into the last page. Still readable after 20 years. But these times seem over. Today there are too many topics that are not covered by books or don't have proper documentation at all.
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Re: Programming book authors: put all the code in the book
#10Just glue an envelope with a CD to the backcover, this is what people were doing before your fancy internets became a thing. But really, if you a writing a book on a modern language, and your code has external dependencies, chances are it will not build 5 years forward, even if there are no URLs directly in the book.
Is it feasible to attach a usb drive to a book these days?