Not too far off the mark, Timothy, but a little.
When I started my Rev book "series" the idea was that i would simply
"port" my HT book to Rev and be done with it. A number of users on
the list at that time ensured me that if I did that, I'd be doing the
community a huge service. It seemed like a pretty simple undertaking
so I jumped in.
Boy, was I wrong. Not only would a port have been impossible (thanks
in large part to the vastly richer vocabulary and power of Rev) and
unhelpful, it would have been counter-productive. I couldn't bring
myself to do that. So I ended up with a HUGE project and what I felt
was a public commitment to produce it. I dug in and did the best I
could under the circumstances. A lot of folks have kindly said good
things about what I did produce and I'm continuing to add to the
repertoire but it'll never be what's really needed.
As I look back, I think the better course would have been to write an
intro to Rev and Transcript. As it is, my book is ONLY about
Transcript, not really about how to build things in Rev. That's a big
missing piece. I could write it but I just don't know if there's a
market for it. Frankly, total demand for the first volume was
surprisingly small (to me, not to Rev, but then they knew the numbers
and I had to guess).
Maybe what's needed now is a comprehensive dictionary of Transcript
in hypertext form from the perspective of a developer, but I'm not
even sure how to start building something like that and feel pretty
sure I'd end up getting slammed for "regurgitating the docs" if I
did.
I'm just about to release my eBooklet on printing. What other
subjects do people want? Is a thorough overview of the IDE really
needed at this point? I gave one at RevCon West (well, not thorough;
not enough time) but not a lot of people seem interested.
Sorry for the ramble/rant. Just trying to figure out what's most
important to do next, if anything. There are days I think I should
just shut up and go back to coding.
On Jul 24, 2005, at 7:22 PM, Timothy Miller wrote:
I sometimes wonder why Dan didn't start by writing a comprehensive
reference. As I think about it, that's probably a no-win
proposition for an author, because Rev's free onboard documentation
would be a hard act to follow, even if it's not that good. And as
soon as Rev improved its onboard documentation, the book would stop
selling. I'd guess that's Dan's reasoning, but it's only a guess.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Shafer, Revolution Consultant and Author
http://www.shafermedia.com
Get my book, "Revolution: Software at the Speed of Thought"
From http://www.revolutionpros.com, Click "My Stuff"
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