Re: Matz's book ??

"Euan Mee" <[e-mail]> writes:

> The key thing to show to the publishers is that Ruby is not
> insignificant now, that it's significance is growing, and will be
> significant in the timescale that it takes to get to book
> publication time.

The reality of the situation is that although Ruby is popular, and its
popularity is growing, the market for Ruby _books_ is not great. Have
a look at the Amazon sales ranks for the books that are out there now:
after the initial flurry they're probably selling a couple of copies
of each a day.

I don't know the whole story, but remember that Addison Wesley
entered into an agreement to publish Matz's book when the market was
considerably smaller even than it is now. They _knew_ the size of the
market when they entered into the arrangement (as they had the PickAxe
sakes to base it on), so I'm guessing it's unlikely that market size
lead to the cancellation of the book. I also know from conversations
with them that they were very keen to get this book out. So it would
be reasonable to assume that there's more to this story than might
meet the eye.

If Matz is still interested in the project, I'd be happy to work with
him and Addison Wesley to see if the project can be restarted.


Dave