From: Amr Malik Date: 2006-08-27T12:48:55+09:00 Subject: Re: My book is out -- Ruby on Rails: Up and Running Greg Donald wrote: > On 8/25/06, Dark Am bien t wrote: >> Congrats Curt. Question though, why is a quick start guide selling for $30 ? > > Here it is for a bit less: > > http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596101325/sr=8-4/qid=1156525193/ref=pd_bbs_4/103-3918823-7043036?ie=UTF8 > > and even less: > > http://www.bookpool.com/sm/0596101325 > > $20 does seem pretty high for a book with less than 200 pages. > Especially since I just picked up Ruby Cookbook brand new from the > used section on Amazon for $31 including shipping, and it's nearly 900 > pages. Thanks for the links, although I'd have to disagree with your line of reasoning regarding the number of pages somehow being the guage of a book's worth. K&R is around 220 pages, and its one of the best damn technical books I have read to learn a new language. these days people conflate more pages with more information and therefore (somehow) more value. I have gone throug half a chapter on some of the technical books and realized that the author could have very easily described the same thing is a couple paragraphs. Times like these leave you with a vague feeling of being cheated of our precious time somehow. I don't know when we started technical information as if we were bying oats by the tonne, but I'd rather take the short and sweet rather than the drawn out version that uses various kinds of filler to just look respectable on the bookself. Time is more important and if I can get the same info in less time, then by all means give me a short book. sorry, I'm just sick and tired of reading 500 page books which only hold about 20 page worth of real valueable information. Just makes me feel cheated sometims. 80% of the "technical" books out there these days are utter garbage, and only feed this weird book fetish most of us techies seem to have. Having said that , this is a general comment and not a comment on either of the two books you mentioned. Authors seem to get beaten up a lot these days for not putting enough pages, putting too many pages, putting too much detail, not putting enough detail etc. etc. kudos to Curt and Bruce for putting the efffort in for the book, the market will decide the eventual value and worth of each item. just my 2c, no offence intended. Cheers, Amr -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.