From: James Britt <jamesUNDERBARb@...>
Date: 2004-02-17T10:53:00+09:00
Subject: Re: A good way to do a book?

> I don't know of an affordable PDF editor. Minimalistic HTML plus CSS?

OpenOffice will export to PDF.


Also, there was an attempt at a community-driven Ruby book at 
http://www.rubydoc.org/book.

Good writing is time-consuming, and hard to do well.  A Ruby book, 
unless its something along the lines of a cookbook or "Ruby Hacks," 
should have a consistent author's voice and theme.   If it purports to 
teach people Ruby, then what is offered in the early chapters should lay 
the foundation for more advanced and interesting topics later on.

I've worked on a few Wrox books where 8-to-12 writers were all pitching 
in on different topics.  While the books were constructed to have a 
central theme, they often came off as a collection of magazine articles.

This can be useful, but I don't think we need to think in terms of a 
book in order to assemble a collection of tutorials.



James