To delve into for or not to delve...
Well I've finally got my signed contract in hand and I've submitted the first bits to the publisher (still not a complete chapter yet). The momentum is building and I'm sure I'll have that first chapter cranked out this week. In the mean time I would like to ask readers (all 3 of you) what you would like to see in an ObjC book. I have a plan and I'm executing against it but I'd still like to hear what you'd like to see.
Are you someone that is currently doing C/C++/C# on Windows or someone that is currently doing Java and wants a translation guide. If so the book could contain examples like 'you do this in C# but in ObjC you do this'. I like this approach as a reader because I don't have to wade through the introductory material. As an author I don't like it because I'm always afraid that I'll confuse someone new to programming by not explaining the concepts at hand.
I also have thought about the reader that is new to programming, perhaps not totally new but has been doing PHP or Perl or whatever and is now wanting to get into ObjC. That book would have things like 'this is object oriented concept A and its important because...'. Again its sort of a translation guide from languages that are not as object oriented and therefore the reader has more conceptual ground to cover but as the author I can still assume a knowledge of looping constructs. The down side is that the book would miss the mark for those experienced in object oriented languages.
Finally the book could take the approach of describing ObjC and not making assumptions about the background of the reader, except for rudimentary assumptions like familiarity with a computer. In many ways I like this approach (as the author) because I can fully explain where I'm coming from on any given topic and not make assumptions. The thing I don't like as a reader of these types of books is that I already know programming language 'X' and I don't really need a fundamental discussion of looping constructs.
So I have a plan and I'm running with it but I'd love to have your thoughts and insights on what would make a good ObjC book for you
I've always thought that examples that are not directly on-topic, especially examples useful to a subset of readers, should be offset typographically in a colored box or some similar mechanism.
That way I can either find or ignore them quickly.
I've been debating taking some colored pencils to my "Enterprise JavaBeans 3.0" to extract the 1) XML examples, and 2) the annotation definitions.
Posted by Bill Shirley on November 07, 2007 at 09:00 AM MST #
hey Bill,
Thanks for the comment, good to hear from you BTW.
It is really hard to manage this though. Because of all those pesky hidden assumptions. That is a big part of why I will read a section in a book even though I'm familiar with the subject of that section. It often gives me insight into where the author is coming from on that topic and just as often helps me to see the topic from a different angle.
As a writer I try to explain things in different ways in different sections or change my frame of reference on a topic to try to explain the same thing in different ways. I think of it as an adaption of a teacher to different learning styles. I like to try to approach the topic from different points of view and explain it from each.
Is that an offer to help review the animation book that I hear? :)
On the JPA topic have you looked at Chris Maki's book http://sourcebeat.com/books/jpa.html. I thought he did a good job of keeping the clutter to a minimum.
Posted by Bill Dudney on November 07, 2007 at 09:55 AM MST #