Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ncar!ames!necntc!encore!bzs
From: bzs@encore.UUCP (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: O'Reilly X Books
Message-ID: <3611@encore.UUCP>
Date: 16 Sep 88 14:45:34 GMT
References: <469@pan.UUCP> <137@tityus.UUCP> <1625@daisy.UUCP> <1165@ora.UUCP>
Organization: Encore Computer Corp, Marlboro, MA
Lines: 56
In-reply-to: tim@ora.UUCP's message of 15 Sep 88 16:11:15 GMT


Just a general comment, some of this flamage bugs me...

I've met Tim O'Reilly, and he seems like a very reasonable, capable
person.

O'Reilly has been, as far as I'm concerned, one of the best publishers
of Unix hand books for years now.

Their Nutshell Unix handbooks, broken nicely into small, inexpensive
topics, are exactly what most new users are asking for, whether their
sysadmins realize it (care) or not. If you're not familiar with them
but recommend introductory Unix books to people you should probably be
shot.

If there's anyone in the publishing industry who might turn out,
perhaps after a few re-edits, an actually useful handbook that hasn't
been pumped up to some outrageous price for unnecessary gloss, it's
O'Reilly who would be my candidate, their track record is
self-evident.

Just look at how many major revisions, as the protocol evolves, he's
had to do already, needless to say that's not the road to high profits
in the publishing business.

Look at some other publisher's works and see how many revisions
they're willing to put out to keep up with technical changes in the
community (how many of your favorite "C" texts out there have been
updated to start to conform to ANSI/C [I can think of one], for
example?)

Publishing X documents at this early stage is doubtless a risky
business as so much of what needs to be said either hasn't been
written yet, well thought out by the technical community or is still
in flux even at a definition level.

I am quite sure, based on all this, that if people simply made their
desires known, and there was consensus (and, of course, good sense) I
can't imagine it wouldn't get incorporated into future editions (how
many of your other publishers read e-mail?)

Why people paint their complaints about not liking a particular
binding choice (which Tim immediately asked the group for suggestions
about) or some such thing as frothing, wild-eyed flames is utterly
beyond me.

It must be sooo easy for some to just sit in the bleachers and throw
peanut shells at the players, I suppose it makes them feel superior or
something (hint: being a nit-picky consumer is not equivalent to being
a high-quality producer, bitching is easy.)

	-Barry Shein, ||Encore||

P.S. Needless to say I have no commercial connection with O'Reilly,
just a customer who is glad someone is out there trying to get the
stuff users need into a convenient form for them.