Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 11:39:54 +0100 (BST) From: Stephen Roome <steveroo@mothra.bri.hp.com> To: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Orielly book Message-ID: <Pine.HPX.4.10.9910151126230.12701-100000@mothra.bri.hp.com> In-Reply-To: <19991015150724.07602@mojave.lemis.com>
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Firstly, I must say that none of this was because I would personally like an
O'Reilly (or anyone else) book on FreeBSD. I don't think I currently need one,
although an up to date book about how the kernel works (that I can easily
obtain in the UK) would be nice.
[I'd probably buy any book anyway - just for bookshelf usage.]
(Secondly, sorry for the length of this email, I'm better with C than english -
and that's not saying much.)
On Fri, 15 Oct 1999, Greg Lehey wrote:
> > AFAIK the orielly books are fairly technical generally, maybe for Linux they
> > can afford to produce a couple of simple "here's a getting started guide" type
> > books, but probably not for FreeBSD.
>
> Well, I'm an O'Reilly author ("Porting UNIX Software"), and I
> disagree. I'd say that, for example, Addison-Wesley are more
> technical.
Okay, from the point of view of being a student at university, most of the
books I remember reading (as mandatory course books) were Addison Wesley or
Prentice Hall (I think that's right for the second one - but these could have
been for Physics or math modules).
However the only books I can honestly say I've bought since University were
some of the O'Reilly X11 books and I almost bought the perl book, until I
realised that the binary docs were good enough.
Personally I prefer online documentation, but O'Reilly seem to have more of a
reputation for technical books in the (perhaps small) circles I move. Which is
why I mentioned O'Reilly (and because of the article/letter on the web from Tim
O.)
I think the focus on O'Reilly follows the "O'Reilly book on Internet Porn" joke
picture that someone sent me. They do, whether accurate or not, have a
reputation amongst some people (me included) for being those folks who write
(all?) the computer books.
> The real problem with O'Reilly is that they had a disaster with the
> 4.4BSD manuals, and it took a long time for them to realise that this
> wasn't BSD's fault.
I suppose to any publisher this counts as a new genre, and large companies (and
therefore any serious publishing house) rarely break new ground. [IVMHO it's
mainly the small companies that do this.]
> > Bearing in mind they'll want to make some money on it, it's probably
> > fair, however it would be in FreeBSD's interests to probably put
> > this high priority.
>
> OK, for the sake of discussion, which publisher do you people prefer?
> Addison Wesley or O'Reilly? I'm also discussing a book with AW, and I
> could do with some input.
So, personally I'd prefer O'Reilly, because in my little world they seem to
carry more weight.
Admittedly and Addison Wesley book might be better, but I can't think of anyone
who'd collect all Addison Wesley books, whereas there are people/companies who
might consider buying an entire set of O'Reilly books for a computing library.
This would be good/better for FreeBSD, and that was my intent.
Steve
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