As many of you know, I spend most of my time writing software and generally resist spending time writing other stuff (even though I always find time to say something here). So in typical hacker fashion, I "launched" what I had with the intention of accepting feedback and iterating. You guys have always been really good at that.
I originally planned on a Kindle ebook, but Scribd was just so much easier for me. I didn't realize that others had problems viewing or purchasing. If you're outside the U.S. or have any other problems reading the sample, just email me and I'll send you a free pdf.
All of your feedback is greatly appreciated. I'll keep updating the content as I go and will gladly accept help with typesetting or distributing. I plan to follow up with some of you during one of my breaks today.
If you buy the book and don't like it, I will buy you a cup of coffee the next time we are together. If you buy it and do like it, make that a beer.
I'd like to typeset the document for you. I'm planning on printing this out for a paperback myself and will be doing it anyways.
If you can send me an editable document (ajai@ajaimk.com - I've already bought a copy too on scribd), that would make it a lot easier. I'm a college student who ran the layout and design department for a magazine, so I have some experience in this.
Also, find it amusing that 1 of the first questions in this book was a comment for a question I had asked on HN ;-)
Glad you put in the work to organize your comments. I've only caught a tiny slice of your input, but it's clear you really love what you do.
I hope you reconsider your ideas on code sharing, it's amazing how much one can learn on blogs and github. I started doing a little part time web programming in 2009 after a decade of strictly c++ simulation and analysis and would be lost without experienced folks (many teenagers) sharing their insights on practical web development.
"I never publish my code. Ever. Users get to give me feedback, but I don't care what other programmers think. Sure, I learn from them, but never in the context of reviewing the code I wrote. I learn from the code of others and apply those lessons to my own work."
You can, of course, do whatever you want but this seems awfully selfish... Essentially saying that you will take whatever others (foolishly?) give in open source, blog posts, etc., etc., but never give back. Am I reading this correctly?
1. Almost everything I ever wrote is proprietary. I couldn't legally share it if I wanted to.
2. I have never taken anyone else's code. In fact, I have rarely even ever read anyone else's code. To me, someone else's source code might as well be object code. "learning from them" means getting feedback without getting code. Others make suggestions. I write my code.
3. I prefer these analogies: You can eat in my dining room without going into my kitchen. You can enjoy my wardrobe without watching me get dressed. You can watch the movie or read the book without watching either being made. And you can provide feedback about any of them that can be accepted and used.
My source code is private. My customer list is private. My address book is private. My current location is private. My personal schedule is private. You can, of course, share whatever private information you want, but calling my choices "awfully selfish" is myopic and misinformed.
It would have been a bit nicer if the great comments were accompanied by some good design/typesetting (generate latex?) and an alternative format (epub).
There are a few solutions based on princeXML that can take easily generatable HTML+CSS and convert it to pdf (example: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/boom ).
While the Prince license might not be the cheapest, there also is a webservice that does the conversion (http://docraptor.com/tour)
docraptor.com uses princexml which theoretically could not only do HTML, but any XML based format. Prince does however include a default style sheet for XHTML and HTML seems to be the only input that docraptor accepts. Not sure what happens if you throw non XML conform HTML on Prince.
Ed is one of the most prolific and valuable members of the HN community. That being said, I'd love for andrewwarner to do a Mixergy interview. Ed is not the typical Mixergy success though but we could all learn from his b2b success.
I tried to read this but the Scribd reader hung up on me after a few pages and all I got to see were blank pages (I'm using FF4). Would it be possible to compile some of the comments in a "Sample.pdf" file and directly link to that instead?
I have a similar project, so I'd like to know how you decided which comments to pick, how you put them together, etc.
I'm working with the epub format right now. Not sure if I made the right choice or not, but it seemed like the best technical option to hit the most platforms. Never occurred to me to use Scribd.
I probably would have bought it for that price but it says United States only. Perhaps Gumroad or Hawtcakes would work? Or the Kindle store? (I heard you can instantly convert files to Kindle format by mailing them to youramazonaccount@kindle.com)
Another site that I used to visit regularly, for about 7 or 8 years, had a poster who kept his own text-file of all the great posts he'd read over the years. Occassionally he would tease us by posting extracts (of course, everybody wanted to know how many of their comments made the cut) occassionally. But I always thought the file itself was probably worth actual money. And I keep forgetting to make a similar effort for other online communities (HN for instance. But you'd be here all day catching all the great coments on HN).
Stuff like this should be made a compulsive reading for hackers.
This solves a very basic problem with hacker-related knowledge - you don't know what to search until you know what to search!
And books like Ed's solve this by compiling it all in one place. Someone here did one for pg's essays and other articles and the result was a 12+MB file good to last you a few days if you're at it.
This was a little side project to have some fun and maybe spread a little value.
I frantically threw this together over the weekend to be ready for the traffic Marc Cenedella (CEO of TheLadders.com) promised me today. His posts:
http://twitter.com/cenedella/status/57759591789887489#
and
http://www.cenedella.com/job-search/leonardo-da-vincis-resum...
Thank you, Marc.
As many of you know, I spend most of my time writing software and generally resist spending time writing other stuff (even though I always find time to say something here). So in typical hacker fashion, I "launched" what I had with the intention of accepting feedback and iterating. You guys have always been really good at that.
I originally planned on a Kindle ebook, but Scribd was just so much easier for me. I didn't realize that others had problems viewing or purchasing. If you're outside the U.S. or have any other problems reading the sample, just email me and I'll send you a free pdf.
All of your feedback is greatly appreciated. I'll keep updating the content as I go and will gladly accept help with typesetting or distributing. I plan to follow up with some of you during one of my breaks today.
If you buy the book and don't like it, I will buy you a cup of coffee the next time we are together. If you buy it and do like it, make that a beer.