
Tim O'Reilly in a Nutshell - Anon84
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781449304867
======
pasbesoin
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.

~~~
bk21
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.

~~~
allennoren
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/>

~~~
bk21
I don't think many of reviewers know even how to compile the source codes not
to mention how to program it. The authors seem to mob their friends or
families to post favourite reviews that are just superficial.
\----------------

Especially Brian Jepson and the mobile series are the most problematic. I
think he should have chosen qualified authors in the first place.

Me and my friends are not evening considering the forthcoming books even with
intriguing titles in the O'Reilly mobile series( ... Augmented Reality ...,
etc. with animals or birds on their cover). Those are DOA by the wrong
authors.

You (or the authors) can cheat readers once, however those readers never
return. I think the TRENDS of the sales figures have already told this fact.
READERS NEVER RETURN.

~~~
bjepson
Your claim that the reviews are fake is untrue. These are genuine reviews. But
if you don't believe me, I can't change that. I can change what ends up on the
printed page, though. We want these books to be the best they can be, and if
you want to help, here's how:

Submit errata for the book when you find a mistake: For Learning iPhone
Programming, it's
<http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/catalog/create/errata/?b=5073>. For the
Cookbook, it's <http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/catalog/create/errata/?b=15595>.
We don't pay people for errata, but I'll make an offer to you and anyone else
reading this: for every 10 new errata submissions of yours that we can
confirm, I'll give you an O'Reilly ebook of your choice free.

Be a tech reviewer on an upcoming book: We do pay a modest honorarium for
this. You'd be reading the book, looking for mistakes and other issues.
Contact me for details.

To take me up on either offer, drop me an email at bjepson at oreilly. Act
now, and I'll hook you up with an early access ebook for an upcoming book that
I'm working on, Programming iOS 4: <http://oreilly.com/catalog/0636920010258>.
I'd be interested in your opinion of that book.

Thanks,

Brian

~~~
bk21
Hi Brian,

Thanks for great offer. It is a great honour to be a tech reviewer for
O'Reilly. However, for some personal reason I can't accept your great offer. I
believe you can find better tech reviewers than me.

For erratas, \- Learning iPhone Programming: It's almost been a year. I forgot
the details. \- iOS 4 Progg Cookbook: Vandad doesn't deserve any errata
submission from readers. But I think anyone who have read some of Apple's
document could easily find errors in the book. You said that book is for
medium to advanced developers. I am just curious about how you measure the
level of developers. He just made the clear cut documents hard to understand
and even wrong sometimes. (Who says PROCEDURE in C world? Who on earth add
frameworks to target not project? is application:didReceiveLocalNotification:
method called when in background? Have you ever open anyone of the sample code
projects in recent Xcode?)

Thanks,

~~~
bjepson
Thanks, bk21. We did have compensated technical reviewers, who are themselves
iPhone app developers, review Vandad's book, and Vandad addressed all the
concerns he raised. We calibrate the target audience level based on the topics
that are covered (beginner, intermediate, advanced).

I'll review these concerns with Vandad and also ask him to tackle the problems
with the project files and get these addressed quickly.

Thanks,

Brian

------
timoreilly
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.

------
allennoren
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.

