Some industries just never cease to amaze me with their strange stubborn behavior that follows them right to their death. Take, for example, the case of computer related literature. It died, almost completely due to the fact that Internet covers all possible needs of a learned and resourceful professional to an extent no book could ever reach, especially in our rapidly changing reality. One would think that book publishers would do something about it before they find themselves out of business. Well it certainly does not look like it.
Let's take a more specific example. Follow me, go to amazon.com and type 'eclipse' in the search bar. Scroll down a bit, to the 'eclipse, building commercial quality plug-ins' title. See it? Good. Now, I would not buy this book. Why? Well, you see, it's from 2006, two major eclipse versions ago. And look, it still costs a little over forty bucks, not to mention shipping to the planet I am writing from. And it does not help that there are twenty pages of reviews, recommendations and links on the Amazon, page. Good job guys, but I still won't buy it.
What would help, however, is the ability to search and view the contents of this book online, for a small fee. Say, five dollars for this book and like, fifteen bucks for the entire eclipse section, for all books up to last year editions. This is an amount I could and would like to invest in something like this, because, even if the book is outdated it may still contain techniques and ideas I could use. I am not talking downloading, just viewing on demand. It would also be great if searches could return results from all books I have purchased this way. Sort of small digital library.
Certainly beats not selling the book at all.
The paradox of insular language
7 months ago
4 comments:
Good post.
I'd pay 50c even, for some of your posts, so definitly it's an idea that can work.
While the 2nd edition did come out in 2006, it is hardly out of date relative to Eclipse 3.4 (at least 95% of it is still extremely relevant since the difference between Eclipse 3.2 and 3.4 are relatively minor at the plug-n development level).
That said, the 3rd edition will be released very soon and will target 3.4 directly. The book has been greatly enhanced with nearly 100pp of new material covering things like Commands, GEF, P2, etc. and all of the existing examples have been updated to use pure Eclipse 3.4 APIs and Java 5 syntax.
Most of the 3rd edition is already available as a "rough cut" in electronic form from Safari at http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0321580400 or http://safari.informit.com/9780321580405
As this is the most popular Eclipse book of all time, our goal is to keep it relevant and keep it updated on a bi-yearly basis. The next major update after the 3rd edition (e.g., the 4th edition) will be targeted at Eclipse 4.0 in 2010.
Well, I believe this post aims at a broader point than just the specific Eclipse book.
By the way, another good option might be what I just did with a Lonely Planet guide I needed.
When you travel, you do need some printed stuff to take with you. However, printed travel guides tend to be out of date (especially regarding prices and accommodation possibilities), and you usually don't need the book of an entire country (or continent) when going to visit only one city.
What the Lonely Planet website allows you to do is just buy specific chapters of each of their travel guides. You get the table of contents and the getting started chapter for free, the general opening chapter for a reduced price and then each of the other chapters for about 5 euros.
Since I'm traveling to not such a popular destination, there's little info on the web, but the entire book would have cost me about 50USD in the only store in Israel that keeps a copy of it, and about 15-20USD before shipment on amazon. Getting the single chapter I need for 5 euros and have it immediately on my computer sure beats not buying the entire book as well.
Wow, I have certainly meant no harm to "Eclipse: Building Commercial-Quality Plug-ins" which I have owned and used on a daily basis. Which is exactly the reason, why I brought it as an example for my point.
I think that the ability to search and look into the book online for a limited price would allow the less informed readers to better understand the real value of this book, and it's relevance to the more current versions of eclipse.
Same is even more true for the multitude of other, less popular and updated computer related titles.
That said, I will be looking forward for the third edition and would like to use the opportunity to thank Mr. Eric Clayberg for his comment on the matter.
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