Frank Sommers
Posts: 2642
Nickname: fsommers
Registered: Jan, 2002
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Re: Are Authors Technological Poseurs?
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Posted: Sep 21, 2007 8:27 AM
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One more thought on this topic: In general, I think the technical book and publishing market is pretty just in terms of rewarding authors for their time and effort invested in producing a book or article.
Books that are truly outstanding from the writing/authoring perspective, tend to outsell books that were put together in a haste with trivial or incorrect examples, etc., etc. In fact, outstanding books often have a long shelf-life (provided they focus on a technology with a longer life-span).
If we look at such best-selling books, I think, again, there are two categories: One authored by the inventor of the technology (who sometimes may also be an outstanding writer as well, e..g, Larry Wall)., and in another camp are books written by more or less professional authors who are really good at being authors, but may not have made significant contributions in terms code.
Thus, it seems, the free market really determines who becomes a writer: If you are rewarded for writing books more than for being a developer, then that incentive would naturally invite someone to write more, and spend less time on coding (by "reward," I mean both monetary and psychological). But if you cannot make a decent living from writing (or training, which often comes with the territory of being an author), compared with coding, then that suggests that coding is where your strengths lie.
Of course, this is an over-simplification, and there are exceptions to this.
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