Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ubvax!ardent!rap
From: rap@ardent.UUCP (Rob Peck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga books
Summary: followup...
Keywords: Amiga companion, Programmers guide
Message-ID: <3848@ardent.UUCP>
Date: 1 Mar 89 18:13:20 GMT
References: <590@godot.psc.edu>
Organization: Dana Computer, Inc., Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 61

In article <590@godot.psc.edu>, eberger@godot.psc.edu (Ed Berger) writes:
> 
> In the last week, I've purchased 'The Amiga Companion' (local amiga shop)
> and 'The Programmers Guide to the Amiga' (University Bookshop).
> 
> 	-They're both very readable, and informative. 
> 	-I like them.
> 
> Thank you Rob Peck.  I'm looking forward to future works.

And thank YOU for the compliments.  I am proud to announce
that the Programmers Guide is now available in German, Italian,
and Danish, each in its native country.

Pre-announcing things may or may not be beneficial... but...
the next title I'll be trying to get published is 
"Learning C on the Amiga".  It is, in effect,
the pre-quel to the Programmers' Guide, containing material
that is greatly generic C but with some Amiga-specifics and
simplified Amiga tools available in text and on disk.

It concentrates heavily on both Lattice and Manx compilers so
that no matter which one a user decides to buy, the code will
work on both.  We've even considered going so far as to include
whichever current version of PDC/ASM68k/BLINK is available near the
time of publication and then of course make sure that all of the examples
compile and run under this environment as well.  The whole idea
would be to give a learning programmer a method to evaluate whether
his program idea would run faster if compiled in C, (thus the PDC
inclusion -- and getting an includes-license for such distribution
of course).  Then once the person felt comfortable with C and
with the idea of compiling, he could purchase the more professional
environment, and still have enough instructions to allow an immediate
no-hassle switchover.

This particular project (if it gets published) was prompted by
the release of a recent competitive title (almost identical title)
that is not done as well as it could be.  For example, the existing
book has, as its first three chapters, "Compiling", "Assembling" and
"Linking", each of which is no more than 1.5 pages long and covers
only one of the two available Amiga compilers.  Flipping thru the
rest of the book revealed a chapter named "Looping"... covering
the usual 'do', 'for' and 'while' statements, and as a grand finale,
the last page covers, would you believe, the 'switch' statement.

I waited almost 3 years to write the Amiga Companion, which could
have been subtitled "what the AmigaDOS manual shoulda been", and
finally, having seen other books almost duplicate the AmigaDOS Manual
in scope and organization, I just couldn't wait any longer.  I believe
that Amiga World and I have done a good job on it.  Now that
there are plenty of machines out there, I believe that the time for
a GOOD Amiga-specific beginner's C book has come.

By the way, my co-author is equally enthusiastic about this project.
(the coauthor will be John Toebes. :-)

If this works out, we'll take a shot at producing a sequel to the
Programmers Guide.   Volume II or perhaps the Advanced Programmers...
(dreaming out loud).

Rob Peck