Re: Book project

[Fotios Kasolis]

On Jun 10, 2010, at 3:36 PM, Jake wrote:

> Point taken, but do you see what I'm saying?  Since Octave has like the same
> syntax and functions, there are a billion and one other resources that
> people can use besides this supposed book.  Including a CD with the actual
> software, for free, would obviously be a huge boost in making it unique. 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jaroslav Hajek [mailto:address@hidden 
> Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 9:25 AM
> To: Jake
> Cc: Fotios Kasolis; address@hidden
> Subject: Re: Book project
> 
> On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 3:20 PM, Jake <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Well the fact of the matter is, there are literally hundreds if not 
>> thousands of MATLAB books.  If Octave has almost the same exact syntax 
>> and functions as MATLAB, then why would anyone want to read this book?  
>> That's why I think it should cover maybe a little bit of the basics, 
>> but mainly focus on what Octave can do that MATLAB can't.
>> 
> 
> Here's a minor point: a printed Octave book can be accompanied by a CD with
> Octave (rpms, debs, Win installers, sources etc) and extension packages. I
> think the same is not true for any book on MATLAB :)
> 
> 
> --
> RNDr. Jaroslav Hajek, PhD
> computing expert & GNU Octave developer
> Aeronautical Research and Test Institute (VZLU) Prague, Czech Republic
> url: www.highegg.matfyz.cz
> 

Your example is very nice (but on the other direction).
1) If all those N(->inf) authors were saying "oh there are N-1 books why should 
i write one? for the same language" then the number of books converges to 0 
(since mathwor*s) already had documentation. The same example holds for any 
other topic! 

2) A project that will help everybody become an author is very attractive, and 
that will help Octave to become even more famous!

3) We are going to put a lot of innovation (topic wise, presentation wise, etc).

4) People that would never contribute a function will now do it through their 
work (and then other people will improve them and built them in Octave).

5) Prove that a community exists and is active!!!