

Recipes with Backbone.js  - ngauthier
http://recipeswithbackbone.com/

======
korny
I'm not sure they have the right price point. Many people will impulse buy
something of interest for under $10 - psychologically, that's a small amount
of money. I bought Louis C.K.'s comedy show for $5, as it's an amount of money
I don't mind wasting - it's a small risk.

However at $24, you'll get a number of keen backbone fans - but you won't get
all the folks who are interested in backbone, and spine, and ember, and a pile
of other frameworks; it's no longer a small enough price for an impulse
purchase, so they'll stick to free tutorials.

The same thing applies to lots of other online purchases - I'll buy a vaguely-
interesting phone app for $7, but probably not for $15.

The price point where people switch from "cheap as my daily coffee bill" to
"the cost of a decent meal" will obviously vary from person to person, and
from country to country. But I suspect that $24 is over that point for a lot
of people.

(me, I'll probably buy it - but I'll think about it for a lot longer than I
would at $5)

~~~
ngauthier
Hey korny,

I totally agree with you that we're outside the impulse-buy price range and
we'd sell more copies if we charged less money.

However, our goal from the start was not to make a tutorial for people
interested in backbone. Our goal was to make a more in-depth collection of
great patterns for intermediate to advanced backbone developers.

Hackers are smart, they can read the docs and figure out the basics. We wanted
to share our experiences with working with backbone for an extended period of
time.

Our book is a great resource for people who would use backbone professionally
and at $24, that's cheap.

Check out the excerpts, and read the reviews, play with backbone, learn it.
When you're ready to bet your app on it, pick up the book :-)

xoxo ngauthier

~~~
boundlessdreamz
I looked at the excerpt. The typesetting is terrible for a book priced at $24.
See the side by shot of rails recipes and your book. Also in your book the
code is not syntax highlighted making it quite difficult to read.

The code is also formatted such a way that the codeblock splits into two pages
for just a closing brace (page 44 - collection view)

For $24 I expect better typesetting. Right now it looks like a pirated OCR
book.

The content may be great (I haven't read it) but to me a book is difficult to
read if it is typeset like this.

~~~
eee_c
I agree that the PDF formatting leaves something to be desired. We are using
the OSS git-scribe (<https://github.com/schacon/git-scribe>) toolchain for
producing PDF, Mobi, and ePub. I have already put a ton of work into the
toolchain to make it better (<http://japhr.blogspot.com/search/label/git-
scribe>). Most of that work, however, was to help get the Mobi and ePub
versions up to snuff.

I plan to take a week or so in the very near future to again focus on
improving the toolchain. Hopefully some, if not all, of your valid criticisms
will get addressed.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
Forgot to link the comparison screenshot -
[https://img.skitch.com/20111216-d3fajpw313y3e4f3cgs74einr1.j...](https://img.skitch.com/20111216-d3fajpw313y3e4f3cgs74einr1.jpg)

As an open source user, I appreciate that you have improved the tools. But as
a potential reader of your book, I want you to use whatever tools necessary to
get it to look good.

Even when compared against a non-professionally converted pro Git PDF, this
books does not fare that well.
[https://img.skitch.com/20111216-enxfwjcgkgsu2pcndkcaimd3q.jp...](https://img.skitch.com/20111216-enxfwjcgkgsu2pcndkcaimd3q.jpg)
The code block has no padding. In general the typography is not pleasant. If
you look at the git book, the italics do not stand out as much as in this
book.

Backbone documentation is presented beautifully. So when you are aiming to
compliment it, the bar is also a bit high :) (Granted it is HTML but I do
think a lot can be done to make this book more pleasant to look at)

------
phzbOx
I'm a bit scared and skeptical. The page looks extremely amateurish (Even in
the source code, div class="one", div class="two", class="three", wtf?!)

Also, nothing about Jashkenas. Did the authors thought about asking Jash what
he thought about it?

From the chapter excerpt, it shows how to include view into views.. which is
already clearly explained in the todo example from the main backbone page. I
mean, I've used backbone a few time, but don't consider myself an advanced or
expert with backbone.js, and I've learned nothing from these excerpt chapters.

It seems more like an amateurish marketing splash page looking to test
interested readers.

But then.. maybe the authors are really backbone.js experts and just not
designers, and didn't one to spend money or ask a friend to design it for them
(but why doing that if you're trying to sell something?!). And maybe I've just
read an excerpt that I knew all about. And maybe Jash said something in the
intro of the book?

------
jayunit
I'm one of the authors of another Backbone ebook (more Rails integration
focus), and I heartily recommend Nick & Chris's book. Great content, well-
written, and applicable.

One of my personal principles is that I value educational content and training
very highly. It's a worthwhile investment - worth the money at over twice the
price.

These guys have been thinking hard about these problems for some time. You can
see a lot of what Chris has been thinking/writing about re Backbone and JS
practices on his blog <http://japhr.blogspot.com/>

~~~
amstrad464
If it isn't the Thoughtbot one, could you please provide a link to your book?

~~~
eee_c
The thoughbot book is available here:
<https://workshops.thoughtbot.com/backbone-js-on-rails>. Great stuff going on
there -- heartily recommend it.

~~~
ngauthier
We wrote our book from the start to be complimentary to the thoughtbot book.
They are creating a great introduction through intermediate content and lots
of info on rails integration.

My recommendation: buy both, read theirs, then ours :-)

thanks @jayunit

xoxo ngauthier

------
gfunk911
Uninformed suggestion:

Offer a money-back guarantee. If you don't feel you got your money's worth
within 30/60 days, we'll give you your money back. I know that this encourages
me to buy, and I can't recall ever using it. $24 is enough money that I think
twice about it, but not enough that I'm concerned about being "scammed."

------
bbased
$2 dollars more expensive, 200+ pages and 50+ recipes lighter than my last
Pragmatic Programmer ebook purchase of this type; Rails Recipes.

Also, a few of those recipes I wouldn't consider "after the tutorial" material
judging off chapter title alone. Like namespacing and view templates which are
covered and covered again across material from the likes of the PeepCode or
BackboneScreencast tutorials. But again, that's just judging from chapter
titles I haven't read it.

That said, it does seem very valuable but I think the price point is off
compared to other books of that type, and other Backbone learning material.

~~~
ngauthier
We included a few intro chapters so that people would be able to fully
comprehend our examples. Think of them as pre-requisites.

Keep in mind Rails Recipes was written by the incomparable Chad Fowler and
probably had five figures worth of editing over a much longer period of time.

Our focus from the start was to provide incredibly helpful and relevant code.
If we had gone through pragprog the release would have been a few months later
with less rough edges.

xoxo ngauthier

------
Hates_
I'm a couple of chapters in and I'm already really glad I bought it. After
watching quite a few different Backbone.js screencasts I've been after
something on "paper" to really piece it all together.

------
davemo
After building a few toy Backbone.js apps and recently a "medium-sized" app I
bought the book and was pleasantly surprised. There's similarities to the
approach peepcode and other screencasts take in that there's a lot of material
that is covered fairly quickly.

This is not a book for beginners, but if you've already got some backbone
chops it's worth investigating as there are a number of chapters that have
great insight into things you only learn after building a few apps with
backbone.

Recommended :)

------
boyter
Since we are discussing it here, is there anything in the book or elsewhere
that discusses how you handle drag and drop events with Backbone? Specifically
ones using jQuery UI? I was playing with it the other day and unable to find
this.

If its in the book consider another copy sold.

~~~
eee_c
Keep your money then, we do not discuss drag and drop in the book :)

Have you already seen this:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7328265/jquery-
draggable-...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7328265/jquery-draggable-
and-backbone-js-getting-reference-to-backbone-model-from-inside) ?

------
jfcouture
I bought it a couple of months ago while it was half price during the beta. It
is not a tutorial. I think it's really nice after you've built at least one
small-medium app with backbone. It's at that point where you'll have hit some
of the pain points those recipes are meant to solve.

------
inuhj
I've been following your co-author's blog for a while now and it's great
stuff. I'm sure the book is better. But yes, the price will keep me away for
now...at least until I read the sample chapters ;).

------
peregrine
It appears the Google Checkout process it broken. I used it, and it just sat
there after the transaction cleared. I've got a receipt but no pdf :S

Edit: Appears to be fixed now

~~~
eggsby
Same happened to me... c'est la vie :o

edit: fixed

I appreciate the time the people involved took out of their schedules to get
it resolved so painlessly :)

Thanks eee_c & ngauthier!

~~~
ngauthier
Sorry about that! Chris and I are on it and we'll try to fix it as fast as we
can.

Nick

~~~
ngauthier
It seems many people are getting through successfully. If you had trouble,
please try again. Thanks!

ngauthier

------
derickbailey
If you're writing BackboneJS apps, you need to buy this book. There's so much
great information in there. It's the book I wanted to write, but they beat me
too it. :)

------
outside1234
you should put one chapter (or even 1/2 of 1 chapter) online - i buy these
things in an instant when I can get a taste of what I'm getting ala what
Amazon does.

~~~
eee_c
We can do you one better than that -- two entire chapters are online. Viewable
from the table of contents page: <http://recipeswithbackbone.com/toc.html>

------
primecoder
My eyes are still seeing lime green when I blink...

~~~
possibilistic
It's not that bad! (Django's site has lots of lime green, for instance.)

~~~
joshuacc
It isn't the color that is the problem. It's the relationship of the lime
green to the other colors on the page that makes it jarring. The Django site
uses a harmonious color scheme with the lime green as a highlight.

------
danso
I'm probably going to buy this but the site needs a few revisions.

For example, in the TOC (errors underscored):
<http://recipeswithbackbone.com/toc.html>

> _Here is our _planned_ table of contents. Since this book has _not yet been
> released_ the order and topics may _changed_ in the future._

Not being nitpicky here. If I hadn't read the HN thread I wouldn't have
understood what the state of the book that I'm being asked to pay $24 is.

One of the chapters that should be made available is the introduction so that
we can get a grasp of your philosophy of instruction and what gap you hope
this book fills. I know there aren't really any backbone.js books, but
hopefully there's a more specific mission statement than "There isn't yet a
book about backbone" yet

~~~
eee_c
Dang. Fixed the TOC. Thanks for pointing that out. Nick and I will discuss
making the intro available.

We are targeting intermediate / advanced Backbone.js developers. That is, you
should read this after you've read the tutorials and after your first Backbone
app.

The recipes are real life lessons learned from a highly traffic'd Backbone
site. These recipes comprise what we have learned as we made the leap to the
next level of Backbone coding. We hope they will help others do the same.

------
skeptical
Am I the only one to think that is nothing but free advertising?

Come on, a link to 'click here to buy' page? I don't understand how this got
to the first page. This is not so honest because the title is totally
misleading. The link does not point to recipes with backbone.js. A more honest
title would be "buy recipes to backbone.js", which is what the link actually
point to.

Might be a great book, but this kind of marketing totally puts me off, I will
not buy a product that is advertised with such techniques.

