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Re: Book Tour Report [message #75826 is a reply to message #75821]

Thu, 28 April 2011 15:40

David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001

Senior Member

Paolo writes:

> Python Programming Techniques
>
> (this is actually a serious suggestion... but I am not sure
> how much competition there is in that field for books...)

To tell you the truth, this thought has crossed my mind,
too. In fact, if I would have had any money to bet on
what my epiphany would have been on my big hike, I would
have been heavily on "python" rather than "idl." But,
the Universe has its own reasons, I guess.

Anyway, Greg Wilson has a wonderful on-line Python
programming course called Software Carpentry:

http://software-carpentry.org/

I've learned a lot of things there. Greg recently ran
out of money for his web page, and did the math to see
whether he could "afford" to write a Python programming
book from the material he already had (quite a lot!).
His answer was no, he couldn't afford to do it.

http://software-carpentry.org/2011/04/by-the-numbers/

I thought his words per day figure was way too high,
and his total days were off by a factor of at least
two, so it probably would have cost him twice as much
as he was estimating, so... Bottom line, it's hard to
write a book. And even harder to write one when you don't
really know the subject inside and out.

Python Programming Techniques is probably not going
to make my short list, anyway. :-)

Cheers,

David

--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.idlcoyote.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")

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[Message index]

		Re: Book Tour Report By: Maarten[1] on Mon, 02 May 2011 04:15
		Re: Book Tour Report By: David Fanning on Sat, 30 April 2011 17:14
		Re: Book Tour Report By: Gray on Sat, 30 April 2011 16:58
		Re: Book Tour Report By: Craig Markwardt on Sat, 30 April 2011 13:59
		Re: Book Tour Report By: Mort Canty on Fri, 29 April 2011 06:52
		Re: Book Tour Report By: David Fanning on Fri, 29 April 2011 06:19
		Re: Book Tour Report By: Mort Canty on Fri, 29 April 2011 05:24
		Re: Book Tour Report By: David Fanning on Thu, 28 April 2011 15:40
		Re: Book Tour Report By: pgrigis on Thu, 28 April 2011 14:11

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