On Thu, 30 Jan 2003, Sperberg, Roger wrote:

> > Personally, I would like to see more books on Ruby. More
> > shelf space can create more mind-share.  -laugh- Or is
> > it the other way around?
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > --
> > -mark.
> >
>
> I'm involved with e-books, and basically experience shows that electronic
> versions of texts increase sales rather than the opposite. In my own case,
> the electronic copy of the Pickaxe book enabled me to buy a different title
> first, but soon enough I wanted the paper copy for reference so I bought it,
> knowing it was worth the money. And I have to say that the existence of
> several texts, from different perspectives, was definitely a factor in my
> choosing Ruby over Python. A few more inches of Ruby (and XML, say) would
> help create more mindshare as much as a heftier RAA, IMHO.


As a consumer, I feel that the presence of more books on a topic helps
drive mindshare for it.  As a sometime author, I find that publishers are
loathe to invest in producing a book for which there is no obvious market.

It's a real chicken and egg problem.  I'm hoping that getting enough
content in terms of conferences, magazine articles, and free stuff will
help push both the mindshare are the publishers along.  (Thanks BTW to
everyone who's been writing and talking about Ruby, it's starting to make
a differnece with some of the publishers that I've talked to.)

-pate

>
> Roger Sperberg
>
>