When someone says they want to write a technical book, I take a hammer and slam it on the aspiring author’s thumb and ask “How do you like that?” If the answer is, “Very much! May I have another.” This person is ready to write a technical book. Sure, writing a book always starts off full of exciting possibilities. But it soon devolves into drudgery and pain with the constant question of whether the time spent is worth it when weighed against all your other obligations and opportunities in life. But no matter how much I sometimes hate...
I hate code samples in technical books! No seriously, this is bile I’m not afraid to give a permalink to (nor am I afraid to end a sentence with a preposition, so there!). Even the shortest code samples are a pain to type in. And if they show anything reasonably interesting, they’re probably too long to type in. Of course, nobody actually types in the sample code, they grab the code from the companion CD (blech!) or download zip files containing the code from the companion website. With Professional ASP.NET MVC 3 (print edition | kindle edition)...
Recently I gave out a few free copies of a book I co-wrote, but ran out quickly. This is the same book that Jeff Atwood (a co-author) told everyone, Do Not Buy This Book. Well, if you didn’t get a copy, there is another opportunity to get a free copy. DotNetSlackers is running a contest and will reward the top 3 contributors to their forums (ooh, that could get...interesting. First Post! or I Agree! Count it up.) with great prizes. Unfortunately, our book is part of a second prize package which includes ANTS Profiler Pro. Our book...
I just received a few advanced copies of our new book and am giving away three of them to the first three people who leave a comment on this post. But there’s a catch! You have to have a blog and promise to write a review on your blog. This is on the honor system so I’ll send you the book and you can then review it. In your comment, leave your email address in the email field (it’s not visible to anyone else) and I’ll follow up to get your mailing address. Also let me know if you want...