6 ms·

Edw519 wrote a book compiling his best HN Comments

184 points by zyfo 16y ago

zyfo 16y ago
Link to the actual book: http://www.scribd.com/doc/52729281/The-Best-Of-edw519 http://www.scribd.com/doc/52729281/The-Best-Of-edw519 I really like this idea and will buy the book. However, it would be nice if the comments were time-stamped, as not all advice is timeless. Anyone know of any other forum-comments-turned-book examples? EDIT: I would buy it if I didn't have to be a US citizen to buy a digital book in scribd. Why is this a problem for a book like this?
- tyng 16y ago
  Good find. I believe Amazon allows you to sell ebooks internationally, I could be wrong though.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - electromagnetic 16y ago
    It does.
- dereg 16y ago
  David Pogue crowd-sourced a book from Twitter. http://www.amazon.com/World-According-Twitter-David-Pogue/dp/1579128270/ http://www.amazon.com/World-According-Twitter-David-Pogue/dp...
- seanprice 16y ago
  perhaps the author can offer the ebook on their site/blog with a paypal payment for the PDF. Living in the UK and cannot purchase this at the mo.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  Not quite a book, but most of the (unpublished) essays I write start out as simple forum posts.
- edw519 16y ago
  I really like this idea and will buy the book. However, it would be nice if the comments were time-stamped, as not all advice is timeless. I originally planned to provide a link to the original but decided to keep it simple. Do you mean a link or the original date? [EDIT: Original date done in next release. Thank you, zyfo.]
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
revorad 16y ago
Thanks Ed! How did you make the ebook? I've been looking for a good app to convert blog feeds to books, but haven't found anything that just works. If you send me an email I will be happy to put it up for sale on my new store (for free of course). You might also want to try Sahil's http://gumroad.com http://gumroad.com.
- pero 16y ago
  How the book was made is discussed in the 'forward'--which is viewable in the preview.
  - revorad 16y ago
    Thanks, that's an interesting read too!
- piranha 16y ago
  Would be really nice to have this book on some different store, as you can't buy it from Scribd if you're not in USA. :(
  - rc55 16y ago
    Just to confirm, you cannot purchase this from the United Kingdom either at this time.
pero 16y ago
Hate to be the bearer of bad news--perhaps somewhat mitigated by the lack of hardcopies--but it's 'foreword' and not 'forward'. That is, unless this is either some technolingo or inside joke that I'm not privy to.
nopassrecover 16y ago
I just saw this in his profile yesterday, intend to buy. EDIT: Apparently I need to be a US citizen. I'll find some other way to send him a donation.
maxklein 16y ago
He should do Amazon Kindle self-publishing and write about the sales numbers later.
epo 16y ago
I'm not a US citizen and all I see is obfuscated content reminiscent of rot-13. Am I being slow this morning?
- Schmidt 16y ago
  Try disabling noscript / enable javascript. I had the same problem
arthurk 16y ago
I tried to read this but the Scribd reader hung up on me after a few pages and all I got to see were blank pages (I'm using FF4). Would it be possible to compile some of the comments in a "Sample.pdf" file and directly link to that instead?
rb2k_ 16y ago
I think I'd really enjoy the read. It would have been a bit nicer if the great comments were accompanied by some good design/typesetting (generate latex?) and an alternative format (epub). There are a few solutions based on princeXML that can take easily generatable HTML+CSS and convert it to pdf (example: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/boom http://www.alistapart.com/articles/boom ). While the Prince license might not be the cheapest, there also is a webservice that does the conversion (http://docraptor.com/tour http://docraptor.com/tour)
- wladimir 16y ago
  Another vote for EPUB. It has so many advantages to PDF for screen reading... for example, automatic reflowing to the size of the window.
- lubos 16y ago
  docraptor.com looks like a paid version of wkhtmltopdf which is free
  - rb2k_ 16y ago
    docraptor.com uses princexml which theoretically could not only do HTML, but any XML based format. Prince does however include a default style sheet for XHTML and HTML seems to be the only input that docraptor accepts. Not sure what happens if you throw non XML conform HTML on Prince.
- dpapathanasiou 16y ago
  You can also use eBookBurn (http://ebookburn.com/ http://ebookburn.com/) disclaimer: that site is run by my startup
edw519 16y ago
Original author here. This was a little side project to have some fun and maybe spread a little value. I frantically threw this together over the weekend to be ready for the traffic Marc Cenedella (CEO of TheLadders.com) promised me today. His posts: http://twitter.com/cenedella/status/57759591789887489# http://twitter.com/cenedella/status/57759591789887489# and http://www.cenedella.com/job-search/leonardo-da-vincis-resume-2/ http://www.cenedella.com/job-search/leonardo-da-vincis-resum... Thank you, Marc. As many of you know, I spend most of my time writing software and generally resist spending time writing other stuff (even though I always find time to say something here). So in typical hacker fashion, I "launched" what I had with the intention of accepting feedback and iterating. You guys have always been really good at that. I originally planned on a Kindle ebook, but Scribd was just so much easier for me. I didn't realize that others had problems viewing or purchasing. If you're outside the U.S. or have any other problems reading the sample, just email me and I'll send you a free pdf. All of your feedback is greatly appreciated. I'll keep updating the content as I go and will gladly accept help with typesetting or distributing. I plan to follow up with some of you during one of my breaks today. If you buy the book and don't like it, I will buy you a cup of coffee the next time we are together. If you buy it and do like it, make that a beer.
- d0m 16y ago
  Great idea. I've looked into it and there are little gems down there.
- imajes 16y ago
  @edw519: send me an original editable format of the book and i'll typeset it for you. james@imaj.es
  - crocowhile 16y ago
    edw, do this and give this guy some cut. The scribd version is awful (at least on my screen: http://i.min.us/iksKDk.png http://i.min.us/iksKDk.png
  - messel 16y ago
    I just bought the book, but would like a readability upgrade :D
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
Congrats Ed! Good luck publishing! I have a similar project, so I'd like to know how you decided which comments to pick, how you put them together, etc. I'm working with the epub format right now. Not sure if I made the right choice or not, but it seemed like the best technical option to hit the most platforms. Never occurred to me to use Scribd.
- edw519 16y ago
  Thanks, Daniel. My app gives 5 sort options - by descending number of words, because short comments don't make good book entries - by descending points, to take advantage of the feedback you guys already gave me - by descending date, to grab the more applicable comments - by descending weight, my own changeable formula, attempting to put the best stuff up front - in output sequence, to get a feel for how the final product will flow I say a little more about this in the foreword. I also hope to clean up the app and make it available if anyone else wants to give it a try.
MikeCampo 16y ago
Great idea and I would love to buy it, but I'm not a US citizen :(
Tycho 16y ago
I probably would have bought it for that price but it says United States only. Perhaps Gumroad or Hawtcakes would work? Or the Kindle store? (I heard you can instantly convert files to Kindle format by mailing them to youramazonaccount@kindle.com) Another site that I used to visit regularly, for about 7 or 8 years, had a poster who kept his own text-file of all the great posts he'd read over the years. Occassionally he would tease us by posting extracts (of course, everybody wanted to know how many of their comments made the cut) occassionally. But I always thought the file itself was probably worth actual money. And I keep forgetting to make a similar effort for other online communities (HN for instance. But you'd be here all day catching all the great coments on HN).
wallflower 16y ago
Ed is one of the most prolific and valuable members of the HN community. That being said, I'd love for andrewwarner to do a Mixergy interview. Ed is not the typical Mixergy success though but we could all learn from his b2b success.
- edw519 16y ago
  Thank you, wallflower. A few years ago, I did a Mixergy interview along with rms about Hacker News: http://blog.mixergy.com/why-communities/ http://blog.mixergy.com/why-communities/ Andrew, if you're reading this, I would love to do another, not about my past projects, but about my next one. Stay tuned... we could all learn from his b2b success Hmmm, sounds like an idea for another ebook....
  - AndrewWarner 16y ago
    Yup. I'm reading this. Let's talk privately about how we could set it up. http://mixergy.com/contact http://mixergy.com/contact
joshuacc 16y ago
I just purchased the book and it was totally worth the $2.56. Which, BTW, is a nice price. :-) Comment #49 is a piece of advice that will pay for the book many times over, no matter what you do for a living.
m0th87 16y ago
About time :)
openczun 16y ago
Jason Gilmore (@wjgilmore) has an interesting article on publishing a book using DocBook, and git for version control. http://www.wjgilmore.com/blog/entry/why_i_published_easy_php_websites_with_the_zend_framework_using_docboo http://www.wjgilmore.com/blog/entry/why_i_published_easy_php... -- Also, I just bought Ed's book ... Really great commentary in there. Somewhat sad I've only been a member of the HN community for such a short time.
maguro 16y ago
What the hell is this crap doing on Hacker News?!?!?!
cosgroveb 16y ago
"I never publish my code. Ever. Users get to give me feedback, but I don't care what other programmers think. Sure, I learn from them, but never in the context of reviewing the code I wrote. I learn from the code of others and apply those lessons to my own work." You can, of course, do whatever you want but this seems awfully selfish... Essentially saying that you will take whatever others (foolishly?) give in open source, blog posts, etc., etc., but never give back. Am I reading this correctly?
- edw519 16y ago
  Am I reading this correctly? No. 1. Almost everything I ever wrote is proprietary. I couldn't legally share it if I wanted to. 2. I have never taken anyone else's code. In fact, I have rarely even ever read anyone else's code. To me, someone else's source code might as well be object code. "learning from them" means getting feedback without getting code. Others make suggestions. I write my code. 3. I prefer these analogies: You can eat in my dining room without going into my kitchen. You can enjoy my wardrobe without watching me get dressed. You can watch the movie or read the book without watching either being made. And you can provide feedback about any of them that can be accepted and used. My source code is private. My customer list is private. My address book is private. My current location is private. My personal schedule is private. You can, of course, share whatever private information you want, but calling my choices "awfully selfish" is myopic and misinformed.
  - cosgroveb 16y ago
    Thanks for that honest answer. You're right, calling your choices "awfully selfish" is perhaps going a bit too far.
  - crocowhile 16y ago
    >I have never taken anyone else's code. This is REALLY hard to believe. Also, god bless the person who thought me to use other people's code.
amitagrawal 16y ago
Stuff like this should be made a compulsive reading for hackers. This solves a very basic problem with hacker-related knowledge - you don't know what to search until you know what to search! And books like Ed's solve this by compiling it all in one place. Someone here did one for pg's essays and other articles and the result was a 12+MB file good to last you a few days if you're at it.
WiseWeasel 16y ago
This will sit nicely next to my Encyclopedia Weaselicus, available now for the low, low price of $3.59.
vkdelta 16y ago
bought. read. Worth every penny 256 times.

184 points by zyfo 16y ago

zyfo 16y ago

Link to the actual book: http://www.scribd.com/doc/52729281/The-Best-Of-edw519 http://www.scribd.com/doc/52729281/The-Best-Of-edw519 I really like this idea and will buy the book. However, it would be nice if the comments were time-stamped, as not all advice is timeless. Anyone know of any other forum-comments-turned-book examples? EDIT: I would buy it if I didn't have to be a US citizen to buy a digital book in scribd. Why is this a problem for a book like this?

tyng 16y ago
Good find. I believe Amazon allows you to sell ebooks internationally, I could be wrong though.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  It does.
dereg 16y ago
David Pogue crowd-sourced a book from Twitter. http://www.amazon.com/World-According-Twitter-David-Pogue/dp/1579128270/ http://www.amazon.com/World-According-Twitter-David-Pogue/dp...
seanprice 16y ago
perhaps the author can offer the ebook on their site/blog with a paypal payment for the PDF. Living in the UK and cannot purchase this at the mo.
cookiecaper 16y ago
Not quite a book, but most of the (unpublished) essays I write start out as simple forum posts.
edw519 16y ago
I really like this idea and will buy the book. However, it would be nice if the comments were time-stamped, as not all advice is timeless. I originally planned to provide a link to the original but decided to keep it simple. Do you mean a link or the original date? [EDIT: Original date done in next release. Thank you, zyfo.]
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

revorad 16y ago

Thanks Ed! How did you make the ebook? I've been looking for a good app to convert blog feeds to books, but haven't found anything that just works. If you send me an email I will be happy to put it up for sale on my new store (for free of course). You might also want to try Sahil's http://gumroad.com http://gumroad.com.

pero 16y ago
How the book was made is discussed in the 'forward'--which is viewable in the preview.
- revorad 16y ago
  Thanks, that's an interesting read too!
piranha 16y ago
Would be really nice to have this book on some different store, as you can't buy it from Scribd if you're not in USA. :(
- rc55 16y ago
  Just to confirm, you cannot purchase this from the United Kingdom either at this time.

pero 16y ago

Hate to be the bearer of bad news--perhaps somewhat mitigated by the lack of hardcopies--but it's 'foreword' and not 'forward'. That is, unless this is either some technolingo or inside joke that I'm not privy to.

nopassrecover 16y ago

I just saw this in his profile yesterday, intend to buy. EDIT: Apparently I need to be a US citizen. I'll find some other way to send him a donation.

maxklein 16y ago

He should do Amazon Kindle self-publishing and write about the sales numbers later.

epo 16y ago

I'm not a US citizen and all I see is obfuscated content reminiscent of rot-13. Am I being slow this morning?

Schmidt 16y ago
Try disabling noscript / enable javascript. I had the same problem

arthurk 16y ago

I tried to read this but the Scribd reader hung up on me after a few pages and all I got to see were blank pages (I'm using FF4). Would it be possible to compile some of the comments in a "Sample.pdf" file and directly link to that instead?

rb2k_ 16y ago

I think I'd really enjoy the read. It would have been a bit nicer if the great comments were accompanied by some good design/typesetting (generate latex?) and an alternative format (epub). There are a few solutions based on princeXML that can take easily generatable HTML+CSS and convert it to pdf (example: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/boom http://www.alistapart.com/articles/boom ). While the Prince license might not be the cheapest, there also is a webservice that does the conversion (http://docraptor.com/tour http://docraptor.com/tour)

wladimir 16y ago
Another vote for EPUB. It has so many advantages to PDF for screen reading... for example, automatic reflowing to the size of the window.
lubos 16y ago
docraptor.com looks like a paid version of wkhtmltopdf which is free
- rb2k_ 16y ago
  docraptor.com uses princexml which theoretically could not only do HTML, but any XML based format. Prince does however include a default style sheet for XHTML and HTML seems to be the only input that docraptor accepts. Not sure what happens if you throw non XML conform HTML on Prince.
dpapathanasiou 16y ago
You can also use eBookBurn (http://ebookburn.com/ http://ebookburn.com/) disclaimer: that site is run by my startup

edw519 16y ago

Original author here. This was a little side project to have some fun and maybe spread a little value. I frantically threw this together over the weekend to be ready for the traffic Marc Cenedella (CEO of TheLadders.com) promised me today. His posts: http://twitter.com/cenedella/status/57759591789887489# http://twitter.com/cenedella/status/57759591789887489# and http://www.cenedella.com/job-search/leonardo-da-vincis-resume-2/ http://www.cenedella.com/job-search/leonardo-da-vincis-resum... Thank you, Marc. As many of you know, I spend most of my time writing software and generally resist spending time writing other stuff (even though I always find time to say something here). So in typical hacker fashion, I "launched" what I had with the intention of accepting feedback and iterating. You guys have always been really good at that. I originally planned on a Kindle ebook, but Scribd was just so much easier for me. I didn't realize that others had problems viewing or purchasing. If you're outside the U.S. or have any other problems reading the sample, just email me and I'll send you a free pdf. All of your feedback is greatly appreciated. I'll keep updating the content as I go and will gladly accept help with typesetting or distributing. I plan to follow up with some of you during one of my breaks today. If you buy the book and don't like it, I will buy you a cup of coffee the next time we are together. If you buy it and do like it, make that a beer.

d0m 16y ago
Great idea. I've looked into it and there are little gems down there.
imajes 16y ago
@edw519: send me an original editable format of the book and i'll typeset it for you. james@imaj.es
- crocowhile 16y ago
  edw, do this and give this guy some cut. The scribd version is awful (at least on my screen: http://i.min.us/iksKDk.png http://i.min.us/iksKDk.png
- messel 16y ago
  I just bought the book, but would like a readability upgrade :D

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

Congrats Ed! Good luck publishing! I have a similar project, so I'd like to know how you decided which comments to pick, how you put them together, etc. I'm working with the epub format right now. Not sure if I made the right choice or not, but it seemed like the best technical option to hit the most platforms. Never occurred to me to use Scribd.

edw519 16y ago
Thanks, Daniel. My app gives 5 sort options - by descending number of words, because short comments don't make good book entries - by descending points, to take advantage of the feedback you guys already gave me - by descending date, to grab the more applicable comments - by descending weight, my own changeable formula, attempting to put the best stuff up front - in output sequence, to get a feel for how the final product will flow I say a little more about this in the foreword. I also hope to clean up the app and make it available if anyone else wants to give it a try.

MikeCampo 16y ago

Great idea and I would love to buy it, but I'm not a US citizen :(

Tycho 16y ago

I probably would have bought it for that price but it says United States only. Perhaps Gumroad or Hawtcakes would work? Or the Kindle store? (I heard you can instantly convert files to Kindle format by mailing them to youramazonaccount@kindle.com) Another site that I used to visit regularly, for about 7 or 8 years, had a poster who kept his own text-file of all the great posts he'd read over the years. Occassionally he would tease us by posting extracts (of course, everybody wanted to know how many of their comments made the cut) occassionally. But I always thought the file itself was probably worth actual money. And I keep forgetting to make a similar effort for other online communities (HN for instance. But you'd be here all day catching all the great coments on HN).

wallflower 16y ago

Ed is one of the most prolific and valuable members of the HN community. That being said, I'd love for andrewwarner to do a Mixergy interview. Ed is not the typical Mixergy success though but we could all learn from his b2b success.

edw519 16y ago
Thank you, wallflower. A few years ago, I did a Mixergy interview along with rms about Hacker News: http://blog.mixergy.com/why-communities/ http://blog.mixergy.com/why-communities/ Andrew, if you're reading this, I would love to do another, not about my past projects, but about my next one. Stay tuned... we could all learn from his b2b success Hmmm, sounds like an idea for another ebook....
- AndrewWarner 16y ago
  Yup. I'm reading this. Let's talk privately about how we could set it up. http://mixergy.com/contact http://mixergy.com/contact

joshuacc 16y ago

I just purchased the book and it was totally worth the $2.56. Which, BTW, is a nice price. :-) Comment #49 is a piece of advice that will pay for the book many times over, no matter what you do for a living.

m0th87 16y ago

About time :)

openczun 16y ago

Jason Gilmore (@wjgilmore) has an interesting article on publishing a book using DocBook, and git for version control. http://www.wjgilmore.com/blog/entry/why_i_published_easy_php_websites_with_the_zend_framework_using_docboo http://www.wjgilmore.com/blog/entry/why_i_published_easy_php... -- Also, I just bought Ed's book ... Really great commentary in there. Somewhat sad I've only been a member of the HN community for such a short time.

maguro 16y ago

What the hell is this crap doing on Hacker News?!?!?!

cosgroveb 16y ago

"I never publish my code. Ever. Users get to give me feedback, but I don't care what other programmers think. Sure, I learn from them, but never in the context of reviewing the code I wrote. I learn from the code of others and apply those lessons to my own work." You can, of course, do whatever you want but this seems awfully selfish... Essentially saying that you will take whatever others (foolishly?) give in open source, blog posts, etc., etc., but never give back. Am I reading this correctly?

edw519 16y ago
Am I reading this correctly? No. 1. Almost everything I ever wrote is proprietary. I couldn't legally share it if I wanted to. 2. I have never taken anyone else's code. In fact, I have rarely even ever read anyone else's code. To me, someone else's source code might as well be object code. "learning from them" means getting feedback without getting code. Others make suggestions. I write my code. 3. I prefer these analogies: You can eat in my dining room without going into my kitchen. You can enjoy my wardrobe without watching me get dressed. You can watch the movie or read the book without watching either being made. And you can provide feedback about any of them that can be accepted and used. My source code is private. My customer list is private. My address book is private. My current location is private. My personal schedule is private. You can, of course, share whatever private information you want, but calling my choices "awfully selfish" is myopic and misinformed.
- cosgroveb 16y ago
  Thanks for that honest answer. You're right, calling your choices "awfully selfish" is perhaps going a bit too far.
- crocowhile 16y ago
  >I have never taken anyone else's code. This is REALLY hard to believe. Also, god bless the person who thought me to use other people's code.

amitagrawal 16y ago

Stuff like this should be made a compulsive reading for hackers. This solves a very basic problem with hacker-related knowledge - you don't know what to search until you know what to search! And books like Ed's solve this by compiling it all in one place. Someone here did one for pg's essays and other articles and the result was a 12+MB file good to last you a few days if you're at it.

WiseWeasel 16y ago

This will sit nicely next to my Encyclopedia Weaselicus, available now for the low, low price of $3.59.

vkdelta 16y ago

bought. read. Worth every penny 256 times.