From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=disabled version=3.1.3 Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id F12D3BC0A for ; Wed, 23 May 2007 06:47:19 +0200 (CEST) Received: from smtpout.mac.com (smtpout.mac.com [17.250.248.171]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id l4N4lIuX028678 for ; Wed, 23 May 2007 06:47:19 +0200 Received: from mac.com (smtpin06-en2 [10.13.10.151]) by smtpout.mac.com (Xserve/smtpout01/MantshX 4.0) with ESMTP id l4N4lABn005916; Tue, 22 May 2007 21:47:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.0.100] (dsl092-032-215.lax1.dsl.speakeasy.net [66.92.32.215]) (authenticated bits=0) by mac.com (Xserve/smtpin06/MantshX 4.0) with ESMTP id l4N4l8xt016130; Tue, 22 May 2007 21:47:09 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20070523002052.GA463@first.in-berlin.de> References: <200705230054.11816.jon@ffconsultancy.com> <20070523002052.GA463@first.in-berlin.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: <2D44D10F-4B92-42A0-8851-DC25A9B77BDA@mac.com> Cc: caml-list@inria.fr Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Paul Snively Subject: Re: [Caml-list] Book sales Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 21:47:06 -0700 To: Oliver Bandel X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.2) X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA== X-Brightmail-scanned: yes X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 4653C756.004 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail . ensmp . fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.01; o'caml's:01 bandel:01 0100,:01 o'reilly:01 ocaml:01 ocaml:01 beginner's:01 bug:01 2007,:98 23,:98 breakdown:98 radar:98 10.:98 budding:98 television:98 Since we seem to be airing our opinions here, I'd like to take the opportunity to add mine. I purchased Jon Harrop's book, am glad that I did, and have never minded his occasional reminders to the list that it exists. I'd also like to note that he has made chapters and some code freely available so that people can judge the likely merits of the book before purchase and can gain some understanding of the kind of material that will be covered. There's no question in my mind that this fills a void; it's important to a language that it not be perceived as a "toy," and demonstrating O'Caml's applicability to scientific computing, as opposed to its more obviously natural habitats such as compiler-writing and theorem proving, seems like a good thing. By contrast, Dr. Harrop's critics seem to take issue with the notion that Dr. Harrop might actually make a profit, either directly or indirectly, from this. While I appreciate that the list is primarily a mutual information-sharing resource, I have difficulty seeing anything wrong with periodically informing people that there is at least one commercial resource available for those such as myself who desire it. In any case, for those who feel that way, it would seem that the simple solution of filtering Dr. Harrop's messages would be sufficient recourse. Best regards, Paul Snively On May 22, 2007, at 5:20 PM, Oliver Bandel wrote: > On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 12:54:11AM +0100, Jon Harrop wrote: >> >> Tim O'Reilly recently published an article about book sales and, in >> particular, gave a breakdown of units sold per programming language: >> >> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/05/state_of_the_co_10.html >> >> As the author and publisher of a book on OCaml, this naturally >> caught my eye. >> So I spent some time dissecting the results and the conclusions >> were quite >> interesting: >> >> http://ocamlnews.blogspot.com/2007/05/ocaml-revolution.html >> >> Most notably, we are outselling APress in terms of units sold. >> Also, the OCaml >> community is desperately short of cheap introductory books. >> >> I should also note that the publication of Practical OCaml, rather >> than >> reducing our sales due to competition, actually increased our sales >> substantially. This indicates to me that the OCaml market is >> sufficiently >> small that there is no risk of competition and anything done to >> promote the >> language improves the situation for others in the community. >> >> Consequently, I would like to encourage any budding authors to >> write books on >> OCaml and help to promote the language. > [...] > > So your mail is not altruism ;-) > > > For my taste you too often mention your book here in this list.... > it's ok, if you tell it once or twice, but this is not your personal > advertising channel. > > Why don't you pay the television for sending advertising spots on > your book?! > > Ciao, > Oliver > > _______________________________________________ > Caml-list mailing list. Subscription management: > http://yquem.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/caml-list > Archives: http://caml.inria.fr > Beginner's list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ocaml_beginners > Bug reports: http://caml.inria.fr/bin/caml-bugs