21–30 of 71 posts
This would be interesting if I could read it. Would it be possible to display text without enabling JS? I have read several IT books recently and they aren't good. Basic stuff like visibility of diagrams, presenting advanced subject matter but also supposedly in a way that will teach you programming, or having pages of code to illustrate something trivial.
This would be interesting if I could read it. Would it be possible to display text without enabling JS? I have read several IT books recently and they aren't good. Basic stuff like visibility of diagrams, presenting advanced subject matter but also supposedly in a way that will teach you programming, or having pages of code to illustrate something trivial.
I'm working on that. I just used a stock template for the website.
What pains me about programming books is that due to the market pressure the balance is skewed extremely in the direction of beginner material and there is precious little material for advanced users. If you look at other branches of knowledge, say electronics, there is couple of books for beginners and then massive selection of highly specialized books for experts. I get that part of this is due to multitude of lang…
This would be interesting if I could read it. Would it be possible to display text without enabling JS? I have read several IT books recently and they aren't good. Basic stuff like visibility of diagrams, presenting advanced subject matter but also supposedly in a way that will teach you programming, or having pages of code to illustrate something trivial.
I'm working on that. I just used a stock template for the website.
What pains me about programming books is that due to the market pressure the balance is skewed extremely in the direction of beginner material and there is precious little material for advanced users. If you look at other branches of knowledge, say electronics, there is couple of books for beginners and then massive selection of highly specialized books for experts. I get that part of this is due to multitude of lang…
Generally speaking, books as a format make no sense. I have seen the financial records for number of popular tech book authors — and numbers related to them having published, for example: products, services, consulting & speaker fees, etc. If the author is trying, they make way more money from the numbers related to them publishing than the book sales. If you like writing long form tech guides, do yourself and your a…
One thing that is constantly left out of books is challenging problems with solutions for the user to cement the new ideas they’ve learned in actual examples. It’s very easy to read along and nod your head but it’s very hard (at least for me) to incorporate my new skills without memorable hands on examples.
Apologies, I really tried to make this not sound condescending!
I think the article is really general advice about (tech) writing, not about writing a programming book. There is very little if anything specific to programming itself, e.g. e.g. the types of code fragments you should use as examples. Also, apart from the line: > You can always ask feedback from people you trust to gain confidence there is no mention of getting someone to proofread or even copy edit the book. This w…
>there is no mention of getting someone to proofread or even copy edit the book. This would also seem really important for a programming book - e.g. to check that the examples work away from the author's dev environment. You're actually talking two different things. Someone needs to proofread/copyedit the book. Full stop. And, unless you have a partner or particularly close friend who will/can do a careful edit for y…
Books need review - not just a few comments on the general concept, but line by line proofreading of the English, and fact checking of every single technical statement.
This is fundamental to the process. It's not an aspiration, it's part of the writing process - because often you'll be writing content while other content is being reviewed, and feedback from both can influence the rest.
Generally speaking, books as a format make no sense. I have seen the financial records for number of popular tech book authors — and numbers related to them having published, for example: products, services, consulting & speaker fees, etc. If the author is trying, they make way more money from the numbers related to them publishing than the book sales. If you like writing long form tech guides, do yourself and your a…
What pains me about programming books is that due to the market pressure the balance is skewed extremely in the direction of beginner material and there is precious little material for advanced users. If you look at other branches of knowledge, say electronics, there is couple of books for beginners and then massive selection of highly specialized books for experts. I get that part of this is due to multitude of lang…
The style we use to teach is optimized for speed of learning and teaches this way using the 'constructivist' method. I expand on this learning style, and why it is so effective more in this post: https://fromtoschool.com/why-most-programming-tutorials-are-....