Re: Who'd also pay for a programming book/PDF

[Michael Piotrowski]

"Graham Douglas" <address@hidden> writes:

> Obviously, Jeff has put a fantastic amount of work 
> into giving us *free* software (and source code)
> and *free* documentation but Lout really needs 
> a full, step-by-step, programming tutorial/manual 
> (IMHO). Personally, and I restate *personally*, I think that 
> a full programming manual (tutorial) would be so 
> useful that charging a fee for it (around US$40?) would 
> be totally acceptable; after all we are getting a great 
> tool and online support for *free*.

I agree.  The existing Lout documentation is very good *and* it's
free.  But I also think a book between the User's Guide and the
Expert's Guide (Power User's Guide? Aspiring Expert's Guide) would be
a great thing to have: Everything you need to know is probably
documented in the Expert's Guide, but personally I find it difficult
to get started with it.  (And I do have enough things I'd like to
implement...)

> Jeff, have you any objections to this idea?
> 
> Correct me if I'm wrong but it is unlikely that
> commercial publishers will, in the near future, 
> produce books about Lout (as they do for TeX/LaTeX).

They quite certainly won't commission someone to write a book about
Lout.  I could imagine, though, that they might accept a submission.
However, the problem is probably not to get it published, but to get
it written.

On the other hand, writing a book might be a good incentive to really
dive into Lout...

-- 
Michael Piotrowski, M.A.                                  <address@hidden>