One comment was that the presence of the Pickaxe book,
a truly excellent book, at no cost, is having an impact.
Personally, I would like to see more books on Ruby. More
shelf space can create more mind-share. -laugh- Or is
it the other way around?
Regards,
–
-mark.
I’m involved with e-books, and basically experience shows that electronic
versions of texts increase sales rather than the opposite. In my own case,
the electronic copy of the Pickaxe book enabled me to buy a different title
first, but soon enough I wanted the paper copy for reference so I bought it,
knowing it was worth the money. And I have to say that the existence of
several texts, from different perspectives, was definitely a factor in my
choosing Ruby over Python. A few more inches of Ruby (and XML, say) would
help create more mindshare as much as a heftier RAA, IMHO.
Roger Sperberg
Personally, I would like to see more books on Ruby. More
shelf space can create more mind-share. -laugh- Or is
it the other way around?
Regards,
–
-mark.
I’m involved with e-books, and basically experience shows that electronic
versions of texts increase sales rather than the opposite. In my own case,
the electronic copy of the Pickaxe book enabled me to buy a different title
first, but soon enough I wanted the paper copy for reference so I bought it,
knowing it was worth the money. And I have to say that the existence of
several texts, from different perspectives, was definitely a factor in my
choosing Ruby over Python. A few more inches of Ruby (and XML, say) would
help create more mindshare as much as a heftier RAA, IMHO.
As a consumer, I feel that the presence of more books on a topic helps
drive mindshare for it. As a sometime author, I find that publishers are
loathe to invest in producing a book for which there is no obvious market.
It’s a real chicken and egg problem. I’m hoping that getting enough
content in terms of conferences, magazine articles, and free stuff will
help push both the mindshare are the publishers along. (Thanks BTW to
everyone who’s been writing and talking about Ruby, it’s starting to make
a differnece with some of the publishers that I’ve talked to.)
-pate
···
On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Sperberg, Roger wrote:
Roger Sperberg
Hi.
“Sperberg, Roger” roger.sperberg@aspenpublishers.com did say …
A few more inches of Ruby (and XML, say) would help create more
mindshare as much as a heftier RAA, IMHO.
This is my thought also.
Can anyone explain how this has worked in Japan. There are lots
of Ruby books in Japanese, it would seem. Has this book availability
increased the popularity of Ruby? Or is Ruby popular because of
other factors, like it is “home-grown”? Are there e-books available
in the Japanese market that compare to the Pick-axe book?
Regards,
···
–
-mark.
Mark Probert probertm@NOSPAM_nortelnetworks.com
Nortel Networks ph. (613) 768-1082
All opinions expressed are my own and do not
reflect in any way those of Nortel Networks.
Hi,
Can anyone explain how this has worked in Japan. There are lots
of Ruby books in Japanese, it would seem. Has this book availability
increased the popularity of Ruby? Or is Ruby popular because of
other factors, like it is “home-grown”? Are there e-books available
in the Japanese market that compare to the Pick-axe book?
Facts I know about Japanese Ruby books:
-
23 books available in Japan.
-
Handful of them sold over 10,000.
-
10,000 copies are considered best-sellers in Japanese computer book
market. In fact, several books including Pickaxe translation won
“the top selling computer book of the week”.
-
Popularity of the language increased after the publication of the
first book.
-
I don’t know how other factors affects.
-
No Ruby related e-books available in Japanese.
Here’s the list of Japanese titles at the time of the last RubyConf:
http://www.rubycolor.org/maki/txt/rubybooks.html
And an important new book published after the conference.
http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20021211.html
“Joyful Ruby” (an introduction book) and “Ruby Hacking Guide”
(exploratory book for Ruby’s internal) are my favorite.
OK, let me yell.
IF YOU HAVE INTERESTED IN TRANSLATING ANY OF THESE BOOKS AS BUSINESS,
CONTACT ME. I HAVE CONNECTION TO PUBLISHERS AND THE TRANSLATOR.
A good commercial Japanese-English translator is available right now
(and perhaps only now). If he was available at the time we tried our
first book, it haven’t canceled. It is very hard to find production
quality Japanese-English translator with affordable price.
We worked together for “Ruby in a Nutshell”. He did a great job.
All errors and mistakes in the book (I know there’re many left) was
due to my tweak after his translation.
matz.
···
In message “Re: Ruby Books – A Question” on 03/01/30, Mark Probert <probertm@NOSPAM_acm.org> writes:
Yukihiro Matsumoto wrote:
“Joyful Ruby” (an introduction book) and “Ruby Hacking Guide”
(exploratory book for Ruby’s internal) are my favorite.
OK, let me yell.
IF YOU HAVE INTERESTED IN TRANSLATING ANY OF THESE BOOKS AS BUSINESS,
CONTACT ME. I HAVE CONNECTION TO PUBLISHERS AND THE TRANSLATOR.
Do any of you Ruby book authors out there have connections with
publishers that may be interested in this? I would love to see matz’s
favorite Ruby books translated to English.
···
–
Jason Voegele
“We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that they invent us.”
– Gene Wolfe, The Book of the New Sun