4 ms·

Show HN: DevBooks – Help Developers find indy books

124 points by simon-holdorf 6y ago

boffinism 6y ago
How heavily are submissions curated? What % of submissions do you reject, and what are your criteria for acceptance? The problem with indy books is huge quality variability, and without indicators of quality like reviews and testimonials, I'd only want to see a big catalogue of them if that catalogue was very carefully selected.
- simon-holdorf 6y ago
  We try our best to only accept books that we think are worth recommending. That said, I'm working on new implementations regarding your points, like votes, testimonials, ratings...
AlchemistCamp 6y ago
I'll throw my "Learn Elixir by building 5 games" book into the ring: https://alchemist.camp/little-potions https://alchemist.camp/little-potions It's still in pre-release (and discounted to $15) but but the reception has been good so far. I don't have a testimonial page for it yet or much marketing behind it, but but you can find comments on it on Twitter and some of my YT videos.
- simon-holdorf 6y ago
  Thanks, looking forward to your submission!
  - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
    I submitted it before commenting here. Did you receive it or was there some issue with the form on the site? I'm not sure, but possibly manually entering "Elixir" as a category along with "Programming" could have caused it to break.
    - simon-holdorf 6y ago
      No it's there, no worries, but so are many others - will review it asap :)
      - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
        Thanks and good luck with the site! I'm a huge fan of tech books and pretty regularly share when I see discounts on Manning, Pragprog or especially Humble Bundle.
        simon-holdorf 6y ago
        Thank you, I hope it will become a cool place for developers in the future! Your book is up, thanks for submitting it!
- hawkweed 6y ago
  I've just bought it. At the first glance it's very basic. Hope, that you will ehnance it with some real world example. The way it is... it looks like five ways to write Hello World program.
  - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
    It's explicitly aimed at people with zero Elixir experience, as the description says. Every project is a game, also as the description says. If you'd like a refund, just reply to the welcome email.
geraldbauer 6y ago
Great initiative. FYI: I help devs find indy (and regular) books on ruby @ http://planetruby.github.io/books http://planetruby.github.io/books PS: The website source and data is public domain / open. Fork away for other languages / topics more than welcome :-).
geraldbauer 6y ago
Great initiative: FYI: I help devs find indy (and regular) books on crypto (programming). The good books @ https://openblockchains.github.io/crypto-books/ https://openblockchains.github.io/crypto-books/ The bad and ugly @ https://openblockchains.github.io/bitcon-books/ https://openblockchains.github.io/bitcon-books/ PS: Again the website sources and data are public domain / open. Fork aways for other languages / topics more than welcome :-).
asicsp 6y ago
Suggestions: * provide a way for including both free and paid versions * multiple links for paid version My ebooks are free to read online [0] and PDF/EPUB versions can be purchased. I've submitted the free version for now for one of the books. [0] https://github.com/learnbyexample/scripting_course#ebooks https://github.com/learnbyexample/scripting_course#ebooks
- simon-holdorf 6y ago
  Thanks for comment, I will add that to the roadmap!
DataCrayon 6y ago
It's a great idea. I've submitted two of my books: - Data Analysis with Rust Notebooks (https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/data-analysis-with-rust-notebooks/ https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/data-analysis-with-rust-...) - Practical Evolutionary Algorithms (https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/practical-evolutionary-algorithms-book/ https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/practical-evolutionary-a...) I hope they fit in!
- simon-holdorf 6y ago
  Thank you, will look at them asap!
- simon-holdorf 6y ago
  Thanks for your submissions, books are up :)
  - DataCrayon 6y ago
    Very cool - thank you for adding them!
de_nied 6y ago
Looking at the site, I think there should be a strict open-source education model. Pretty much all of the books I've seen look no different than your average blog post, and not interesting or good ones at that. The only book I saw that I thought might actually be worth any time is "The Case of IBM 386 PC: A Detective Story for Techies." "Indy books" should be about indie subjects. Topics that have little public information on them, but that can be interesting, valuable, or in some way beneficial. Yet all I see are books that hold the equivalent of 2010's Buzzfeed titles. Indie books could even be from indie authors, in the regard of creative writing (as my example above). But listing books on how to do something that's been discussed, and I don't think I'm exaggerating here, millions of times, doesn't seem like you're "helping developers find indie books." I like the concept, but I'm not a fan of the execution. Of course, I'm a bit biased in the manner as I think anything beyond using the manual, Google, Discord/IRC, and forum, is generally a complete waste of time. Want to know anything? Manual > Google > Discord/IRC > forum post.
- kowlo 6y ago
  Do you think Indie Games should also only be about indie subjects?
  - de_nied 6y ago
    I'm confused as to what your point is. The title had to do with indie books, not indie games. The two aren't really comparable in this scenario because indie games rely on the creativity of the people making them. The reason they're called indie is because people can't afford a large budget because they're not from or related to a major company. If we take the same definition, as you did, and apply it to books written for developers, then I'm afraid an "indie book" in your context would be literally anything written by anyone on the internet. My definition was that indie implied a sort of "unknown," as indie games often are.
    - kowlo 6y ago
      It doesn't sound like you're confused about my point... Indie Books are books published outside of mainstream publishing. You're misrepresenting what Indie Books are with your own opinion of what you want to see on the site instead.
agbell 6y ago
Great list! I wish there were a term like novella for non-fiction. Many of these, I suspect are not book length but more essay or novella length (< 30,000 words ). That is fine, I don't need people to pad out a book, but I'd like to understand the length a bit before hand.
mooreds 6y ago
I too have a book that is on this list: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/the-book/ https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/the-book/ I love the idea of highlighting overlooked books. But when I submitted, maybe I misunderstood the list. From what I read here, it seems like the list maintainers are looking to promote self published books. Or those published by someone other than an non big tech publisher (O'Reilly, APress, Manning)? It's a bit unclear to me. My book was published by APress. I'm proud of it, but maybe it doesn't belong on this list?
- simon-holdorf 6y ago
  You should be proud of that and you should be on the list :) If APress, or any comparable company wpuld suggest adding all their books, I will happily decline that. This is an experiment. I don't know if things work out as expected but I follow the inspect and adapt pattern here. As long as this is not getting abused, everythings fine for me.
  - mooreds 6y ago
    Ah, fair enough, thanks for clarifying! Thanks for promoting the hard work of other authors.
petr25102018 6y ago
Nice initiative! I will publish my own book this year so it is great to see some love for indie publishing :-) I would also be very much interested in finding some reviewers that would be willing to help review say 2-3 chapters of my book in exchange for getting the final version. Is anybody here interested in that or do you know of a place where I could get some interested beta-readers?
binarynate 6y ago
indie = independent indy = Indianapolis
nascar_tex 6y ago
Some tutorials were published a while ago by this dev https://www.quads-puzzle.com/ https://www.quads-puzzle.com/ But as far as indie go, I think this is a great idea.
lrossi 6y ago
The website looks really slick! Clean and fast. Is it built with tailwind by any chance? Anyway, I submitted my self-published book on dynamic programming: https://sw46.github.io/pip-book/ https://sw46.github.io/pip-book/ Hoping that it may be approved. Many thanks for making a website to showcase indy books. We need all the visibility we can get.

124 points by simon-holdorf 6y ago

How heavily are submissions curated? What % of submissions do you reject, and what are your criteria for acceptance? The problem with indy books is huge quality variability, and without indicators of quality like reviews and testimonials, I'd only want to see a big catalogue of them if that catalogue was very carefully selected.

simon-holdorf 6y ago
We try our best to only accept books that we think are worth recommending. That said, I'm working on new implementations regarding your points, like votes, testimonials, ratings...

AlchemistCamp 6y ago

I'll throw my "Learn Elixir by building 5 games" book into the ring: https://alchemist.camp/little-potions https://alchemist.camp/little-potions It's still in pre-release (and discounted to $15) but but the reception has been good so far. I don't have a testimonial page for it yet or much marketing behind it, but but you can find comments on it on Twitter and some of my YT videos.

simon-holdorf 6y ago
Thanks, looking forward to your submission!
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  I submitted it before commenting here. Did you receive it or was there some issue with the form on the site? I'm not sure, but possibly manually entering "Elixir" as a category along with "Programming" could have caused it to break.
  - simon-holdorf 6y ago
    No it's there, no worries, but so are many others - will review it asap :)
    - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
      Thanks and good luck with the site! I'm a huge fan of tech books and pretty regularly share when I see discounts on Manning, Pragprog or especially Humble Bundle.
      - simon-holdorf 6y ago
        Thank you, I hope it will become a cool place for developers in the future! Your book is up, thanks for submitting it!
hawkweed 6y ago
I've just bought it. At the first glance it's very basic. Hope, that you will ehnance it with some real world example. The way it is... it looks like five ways to write Hello World program.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  It's explicitly aimed at people with zero Elixir experience, as the description says. Every project is a game, also as the description says. If you'd like a refund, just reply to the welcome email.

geraldbauer 6y ago

Great initiative. FYI: I help devs find indy (and regular) books on ruby @ http://planetruby.github.io/books http://planetruby.github.io/books PS: The website source and data is public domain / open. Fork away for other languages / topics more than welcome :-).

geraldbauer 6y ago

Great initiative: FYI: I help devs find indy (and regular) books on crypto (programming). The good books @ https://openblockchains.github.io/crypto-books/ https://openblockchains.github.io/crypto-books/ The bad and ugly @ https://openblockchains.github.io/bitcon-books/ https://openblockchains.github.io/bitcon-books/ PS: Again the website sources and data are public domain / open. Fork aways for other languages / topics more than welcome :-).

asicsp 6y ago

Suggestions: * provide a way for including both free and paid versions * multiple links for paid version My ebooks are free to read online [0] and PDF/EPUB versions can be purchased. I've submitted the free version for now for one of the books. [0] https://github.com/learnbyexample/scripting_course#ebooks https://github.com/learnbyexample/scripting_course#ebooks

simon-holdorf 6y ago
Thanks for comment, I will add that to the roadmap!

DataCrayon 6y ago

It's a great idea. I've submitted two of my books: - Data Analysis with Rust Notebooks (https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/data-analysis-with-rust-notebooks/ https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/data-analysis-with-rust-...) - Practical Evolutionary Algorithms (https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/practical-evolutionary-algorithms-book/ https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/practical-evolutionary-a...) I hope they fit in!

simon-holdorf 6y ago
Thank you, will look at them asap!
simon-holdorf 6y ago
Thanks for your submissions, books are up :)
- DataCrayon 6y ago
  Very cool - thank you for adding them!

de_nied 6y ago

Looking at the site, I think there should be a strict open-source education model. Pretty much all of the books I've seen look no different than your average blog post, and not interesting or good ones at that. The only book I saw that I thought might actually be worth any time is "The Case of IBM 386 PC: A Detective Story for Techies." "Indy books" should be about indie subjects. Topics that have little public information on them, but that can be interesting, valuable, or in some way beneficial. Yet all I see are books that hold the equivalent of 2010's Buzzfeed titles. Indie books could even be from indie authors, in the regard of creative writing (as my example above). But listing books on how to do something that's been discussed, and I don't think I'm exaggerating here, millions of times, doesn't seem like you're "helping developers find indie books." I like the concept, but I'm not a fan of the execution. Of course, I'm a bit biased in the manner as I think anything beyond using the manual, Google, Discord/IRC, and forum, is generally a complete waste of time. Want to know anything? Manual > Google > Discord/IRC > forum post.

kowlo 6y ago
Do you think Indie Games should also only be about indie subjects?
- de_nied 6y ago
  I'm confused as to what your point is. The title had to do with indie books, not indie games. The two aren't really comparable in this scenario because indie games rely on the creativity of the people making them. The reason they're called indie is because people can't afford a large budget because they're not from or related to a major company. If we take the same definition, as you did, and apply it to books written for developers, then I'm afraid an "indie book" in your context would be literally anything written by anyone on the internet. My definition was that indie implied a sort of "unknown," as indie games often are.
  - kowlo 6y ago
    It doesn't sound like you're confused about my point... Indie Books are books published outside of mainstream publishing. You're misrepresenting what Indie Books are with your own opinion of what you want to see on the site instead.

agbell 6y ago

Great list! I wish there were a term like novella for non-fiction. Many of these, I suspect are not book length but more essay or novella length (< 30,000 words ). That is fine, I don't need people to pad out a book, but I'd like to understand the length a bit before hand.

mooreds 6y ago

I too have a book that is on this list: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/the-book/ https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/the-book/ I love the idea of highlighting overlooked books. But when I submitted, maybe I misunderstood the list. From what I read here, it seems like the list maintainers are looking to promote self published books. Or those published by someone other than an non big tech publisher (O'Reilly, APress, Manning)? It's a bit unclear to me. My book was published by APress. I'm proud of it, but maybe it doesn't belong on this list?

simon-holdorf 6y ago
You should be proud of that and you should be on the list :) If APress, or any comparable company wpuld suggest adding all their books, I will happily decline that. This is an experiment. I don't know if things work out as expected but I follow the inspect and adapt pattern here. As long as this is not getting abused, everythings fine for me.
- mooreds 6y ago
  Ah, fair enough, thanks for clarifying! Thanks for promoting the hard work of other authors.

petr25102018 6y ago

Nice initiative! I will publish my own book this year so it is great to see some love for indie publishing :-) I would also be very much interested in finding some reviewers that would be willing to help review say 2-3 chapters of my book in exchange for getting the final version. Is anybody here interested in that or do you know of a place where I could get some interested beta-readers?

binarynate 6y ago

indie = independent indy = Indianapolis

nascar_tex 6y ago

Some tutorials were published a while ago by this dev https://www.quads-puzzle.com/ https://www.quads-puzzle.com/ But as far as indie go, I think this is a great idea.

lrossi 6y ago

The website looks really slick! Clean and fast. Is it built with tailwind by any chance? Anyway, I submitted my self-published book on dynamic programming: https://sw46.github.io/pip-book/ https://sw46.github.io/pip-book/ Hoping that it may be approved. Many thanks for making a website to showcase indy books. We need all the visibility we can get.