Tim O'Reilly in a Nutshell

http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781449304867

by Anon84 • 15 years ago

36 19 15 years ago

pasbesoin• 15 years ago

Tim, I imagine you'll get over here eventually, if this thread picks up steam. I've quite enjoyed and found useful many O'Reilly titles, especially the "classics" from the '90's and early on in the prior decade.

However, I've had in-depth experience with several recent O'Reilly titles that are not just somewhat worse, but frankly not at all worth the money. That have left me wondering where the hell the editor, any editor, was; not just to tidy up the language a bit, but to assess the competence of the author and the worthiness -- and correctness -- of the title's content.

My impression is that you've shifted your own attention more to the conferences and some of the forward-thinking activity going on in the Valley and beyond (e.g. "alternative" energy development). While I don't begrudge you that, part of me hopes you might cast a rather attentive, and sustained, eye upon the current state of O'Reilly's publishing activities and titles. If they aren't improved (perhaps the "Head Start" series being an exception; but that's a genre, not a publishing house), I fear for O'Reilly's future as your pre-existing momentum runs out. My selfish interest being that I could use, and would readily pay for -- as I have often in the past -- higher quality titles akin to those of yore.

Maybe my anecdotal experience is the exception, but I've been reading here and there comments from others to at least somewhat similar effect.

showerst• 15 years ago

I'd also note that while I love the expansion of O'Reilly's line over the past few years to more nonstandard topics (books like programming collective intelligence, or mining the social web), I've noticed that the quality of the technical editing has really declined.

I probably buy 5-10 a O'Reilly books per year, and I can't remember the last time I got one without significant typos or code errors that would be deal-breakers to a less experienced programmer.

bauchidgw• 15 years ago

two examples: the art of seo and couchDB were both books way below -what i believe is - the o'reilly standard. the editors were either completely overwhelmed with the topics at hand, or the books wre rushed out the door due to "we need something on the market now" reasons.

bk217• 15 years ago

In fact some books are good(+) and others are terrible(-). I recently have read a few O'Reilly books on iPhone programming.

+ Head First iPhone Development: The authors' penetrating and clear explanation is the reason why we pay for a book where there are very good and free documents. Fairly good book and I have recommended this book to all of my friends.

- Learning iPhone Programming: Terrible. The author is fairly incompetent. He should have read Head First iPhone Development not to mention Apple's document in the first place.

- iOS 4 Programming Cookbook: The most terrible book that I have ever read. The author is not even accustomed to C besides Objective-C. Who says procedure in C? Some explanation is completely wrong. Vandad also deleted the readers' errata. I have seen many erratas submitted and removed silently. Even if the errata was wrong this should never ever happen because other readers can also misunderstand that point.

If O'Reilly have ever have a decent technical reviewers in mobile programming, they should have these books reviewed by them before these books published to the world.

Finally O'Reilly should know that nowadays nobody refers to reviews in the oreilly.com. Many of the reviews are fake and blindly friendly.

I hope to see much better ("worth the money") books from O'Reilly in the future.

allennoren2• 15 years ago

Regarding reviews on oreilly.com, I can assure you that isn't true. While all product review systems are open to manipulation (Amazon has been dealing with this from the beginning.) we're careful to verify reviewers. All reviews, good or bad, are welcome, and you'll find plenty that are painful for us and our authors, such as this one: http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920010067/

allennoren2• 15 years ago

Hello. There are O'Reilly people listening here. Can you be specific about titles and the problems with them? The Art of SEO and couchDB are two mentioned. What else?

Thanks.

timoreilly• 15 years ago

Thanks, pasbesoin, for the frank feedback. You're right that I haven't been much involved in the book program for years. But even if I were, my own technical skills are now rusty enough that I'm not sure my involvement would help. It's ironic, perhaps, that we are now relying more on outside technical reviewers than on the expertise of our editors. And perhaps that is the problem. Our editors definitely used to be the beta users of the book.

The folks who do manage the program now will definitely be taking this thread seriously, though.

Specific criticisms are always helpful, btw.

Tim O'Reilly in a Nutshell

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