On Mar 25, 12:35 pm, Steve Schmechel <[email protected]> wrote: > In order to make creating a web application like "configuring an XML file", > your framework must be very opinionated, which Pyramid is not. I think > there are two different audiences here and you are never going to change > Django "configurers" into Pyramid programmers with a great book.
100% in agreement. > Maybe they would be better suited with a book on one of the opinionated > frameworks built on top of Pyramid. (Kotti, Ptah, Khufu, Akhet) Those > frameworks have made many of the tough decisions for them and, if one of > them meets their needs, they just need a little help "configuring" it. I think the books do little in terms of "Configuring" and more in terms of "reading on the couch and getting excited by it" , then using it with a computer later/the next day. I thought about suggesting that one or more frameworks are "annointed" as representations of pyramid, and those are shown as a comparative "this is how you build a messagebaord app". > There is another, maybe smaller, set of programmers that do use Pyramid > directly to either create an "opinionated" framework or to solve a problem > that is difficult to do with other frameworks. For them, extra books on > integrating various pieces are very valuable, although whether that value > adds up to enough to make it worth the authors time is another story. > > Which takes us back to the first point of the OP: > * What kind of book about Pyramid do you think would be successful? My concern is that those type of people aren't going to read a Pyramid book. They're going through the docs. They're active on lists. They've got the API to answer most questions. I see a benefit of having a technical reference guide & best-practices for Pyramid. I'm reminded of the Exim4 book ( on UIT Cambridge Press, not the exim3 on o'reilley) - philip hazel did a stellar job describing the nuances of SMTP , all the design decisions in exim , the specifics of routing , and then went into API and howto. It's one of the best Technical Books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. BUT... I got it in 2005. This was before broadband was widely available , or we had things like autogenerated docs. In any event, the existing "Narrative documentation" is like a condensed version of the Exim book. Anyone who is now using or considering Pyramid, is very unlikely to buy or read a book -- They're the type of person who does RTFM already. The "Sweet Spot" for book sales and evangelism, is going to be addressing some section of the django market and people who are new to python. An idea that I think could work is something like: "Teach yourself Python with Pyramid... the most powerful and flexible web framework". Show how to build a simple db backed webpage using "raw" pyramid, and then a framework or two, and then loop back into raw pyramid and show how Pyramid lets you alter all the stuff that kotti/ptah/whatever does in some way. if you look at the reviews on Amazon for the various Django books, the samples i looked at largely read like this: beginning programmers praise them, intermediate to advanced ones say things like "reading it cover to cover, it explained how/why various underpinnings happened" and "the official tutorials are better". anyways, my point is that I'd look at what people are buying/reading the django books for and then write a book catered to them and those needs. i don't see the current pyramid audience getting much out of a book, but i do see the chance to develop and grow an audience. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "pylons-discuss" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/pylons-discuss?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
