From: Dave Thomas <dave@...>
Date: 2004-09-03T08:25:58+09:00
Subject: Re: Pickaxe 2 and rpa-base


On Sep 2, 2004, at 17:32, Carl Youngblood wrote:

> I was just drooling in anticipation for pickaxe 2 and looking through
> the table of contents on the pragprog web site.  I know this is
> probably asking too much considering its recent release, but rpa-base
> wasn't too far behind ruby-gems in being released, and I believe it is
> definitely a worthy contender in the ruby package management arena.  I
> was disappointed to see that it wasn't included in the book, although
> a whole chapter was devoted to ruby-gems.

The Gems folks had done a good job of getting the word out, and I had 
enough lead time to work with them to add the material to the book. (In 
fact Chad wrote the chapter). rpa-base was below my radar during that 
period, and by the time I saw the announcement the book was well into 
final preparation. I added a quick reference and a paragraph in the 
resources section at the back, but there was no way to add a chapter 
and still get the book in on time. Had the rpa folks appraoched me 
suggesting a chapter, I'd have been very happy to include it.

That's the problem with books--even with a fairly agile publishing 
system such as ours, there are still deadlines and cutoff dates.

Rest assured that the chapter wasn't omitted for any reason that there 
not being any content there in time :)

Cheers

Dave