Over the last few months, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the kinds of people who get into Perl simply to put guestbooks and hit counters on thier web site. To me this seems to be currently the way that most people start using Perl. I've summarised my current ideas on this subject in my Idiotic Perl talk.
One of the problems that I've identified is that there isn't a book that one of these people will buy which teaches good Perl. The good beginners Perl books (Learning Perl, Elements of Programming with Perl and Beginning Perl for example) all look far too scary to someone whose "programming" experience is writing a bit of HTML. The kinds of books that they will buy all teach bad Perl.
This isn't new. I've been saying for months that we need a new beginners Perl/CGI book which addresses this market. I've also been saying that I thought I wasn't the right person to write it.
Over the last few weeks tho' my opinion has been changing. With the interest in nms and my recent article on perl.com I'm starting to think that maybe I could be the person to write the book. A number of people at the German Perl Workshop seemed to think that it was a good idea.
So my current plan is to see if I can find a publisher interested in the idea. I'd need to choose a publisher carefully as I don't think that my target audience even look at O'Reilly or Manning books. The go for big, colourful books with titles like Learn Everything Fast!. If you've an idea about publishers that might be interested then please let me know.
Oh, and titles are important too. kudra and kane presented me with this web page where people can suggest a title for the book - togther with some of their best efforts :) Please join in with your suggestions.
19th Feb.
Wrote email script. V easy. Off to pub to celebrate. Oop fellover.
Perl for Web Site Management is a terrific book so you might have a look at it to make sure you aren't reinventing the wheel.
Re:actually there is a good book on the topic
pudge on 2002-02-19T16:16:44
I can't speak for the book, but I enjoyed the author's article on oreillynet on the same subject. That said, however, I think davorg's focus might be a bit different. And besides, since when are computer book publishers concerned about reinventing the wheel?
Oh right, since the dot-com crash. Never mind.;-) Re:actually there is a good book on the topic
hfb on 2002-02-19T17:44:28
I don't think so as I'm very familiar with the book and its intended audience is the same as daves more or less...it even has the tried and true guestbook chapter. For the absolute beginner I think it's an excellent book...and even the not so absolute beginner.
Re:actually there is a good book on the topic
davorg on 2002-02-19T16:50:02
I'm aware of that book, but I haven't had a chance to have a close look at it yet. I will, of course, take a closer look before very long.
From what I've seen tho' it's not really targeting the same audience that I'm thinking of.
I'm talking about the people who buy Perl and CGI for the World Wide Web or CGI 101[1] or who think that Matt's scripts will help them. I don't think that these people look at O'Reilly books on the shelves. The go for something a little flashier. I pains me to say it, but I could almost be thinking of something like Perl and CGI for Dummies here!
[1] I know what that title means in a US college setting, but having read the book it always summons up images of Room 101 from 1984
:)
I mean it should include the word easy in the title:
Maybe the last one wouldn't fly because of various copyright issues, but I like it the best though. I would also suggest a small format and a spiral binder. And of course you could use the clever "mini-fan + post-it over the text" trick to simulate the blink tag, which should at least get the book mentioned as a curiosity, and help generate the required buzz around it (OK, this makes no sense whatsoever, but I needed a long paragraph in the end to pass the !@#$%^&* lameness filter, what's wrong with short line?)
