Re: "Test Driving Linux" Released by O'Reilly

From: Bill Vermillion (bv_at_wjv.com)
Date: 05/24/05 

Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 14:55:01 GMT

In article <f5CdneHNdrPYiA_fRVn-rA@taconic.net>,
Tony Lawrence <foo@pcunix.com> wrote:
>Brian K. White wrote:
>> OK I hate to be a party pooper but think I'm kinda tired of the ads if they
>> are going to be this frequent.
>>
>> I don't mind, actually I appreciate, the occasional advertizement showing up
>> here if the product is on topic and not otherwise well known, or
>> _infrequent_ informative updates about products even if they are well known
>> as long as they are topical.
>>
>> While many of the O'Reilly books are topical here, and these ads could be
>> called informative updates, they are apparently not going to be infrequent
>> and I think everyone knows for a long time by now that the O'Reilly books
>> exist, where to find them, that new ones are always coming out, and what
>> their average usefulness is.

>And I'm getting annoyed by how much the quality of O'Reilly books has
>deteriorated. I'm not saying they are publishing worthless junk now,
>but I think their standards are not what they used to be. Just my
>opinion, but it used to be that if I saw an O'Reilly title on a subject
>I wanted to know more about, I'd just buy it. Now I pick it up and look
>through a few chapters to see if it's worth the money. Often it still
>is, but not always. Maybe it's always been that way and things look
>more idyllic in hindsight..

A lot of that has to do with the way the world of computers has
changed. O'Reilly started publishing when computer books were few
and far between - and I still have a couple of the Nutshell books
with the spiral binding and brown cover with a nut.

It's a fourth priniting of Managing Usenet and UUCP printed in
1987 - with it's original price sticker of $18.00 still on the
cover. You certainly got a lot of bang for the buck in those
days. It listed all 9 of their Unix books.

But the computer books expanded from less than one-shelf when I
first started buying them to rows of shells at the bookstores as
more people starting using computers. You used to have to be more
technically oriented to be able to run a computer and read the
books.

But just as the auto industry changed from drivers who had to be
mechanics when that industry blossomed to the units of today that
you only have to know how to steer and insert a key [except for one
or two smart models that use recognition so you don't even need a
key] the book publishing industry changed to books for users.

I just looked at may favorite tech book site, bookpool.com, and see
there are 713 O'Reilly titles listed. You make business decisions
- to stay tightly focused and perhaps wither - or grow the
business.

Just because some company has changed product lineup from the first
time you used it to their current target audience and you aren't
one of the targets, you can really only complain that they don't
answer your needs.

Many of the O'Reilly books are ones that developers look on as
official/recommended/etc, for their works such as some of their
Samba or Perl books.

I have many O'Reilly books, and I've received review copies in the
past. But for computer books for technically oriented readers I
find in my library [I don't add as many any more] having increasing
number of titles from Addison-Wesley, Prentice-Hall, Wiley,
Springer-Verlag, a couple from MIT and one from Oxford.

Good business practices dictate going where the market is, and
as the old saying states "You can't go home anymore".

I don't want to step back to the Good Olde Dayze - they were far
too slow and unreliable.

Bill 

-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com

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