4 ms·
That's something I have noticed with a lot of programming books. They are super long and are just pages of unfocused blablabla and screenshots. I miss books lik
by rqtwteye 4y ago
That's something I have noticed with a lot of programming books. They are super long and are just pages of unfocused blablabla and screenshots. I miss books like K&R that are well written and concise.
Problem is that padding most non-fiction books is really easy while padding a fiction book is hard. So expect non-fiction to get longer and fiction to get shorter.
- klodolph 4y agoI've heard that if you write a technical book on programming and work with a publisher, they'll encourage you to stick code listings in your book.
- AlbertCory 4y agoActually, as a writer of two fiction books: it's really easy. You just include more pointless description. Some popular fiction writer (James Patterson? not sure) said, paraphrasing, "You know all those parts you tend to skip over? I just don't write those."
- rocketbop 4y agoHe doesn't write those, but he works with a team of writers to deliver books at the cadence he does, so probably he meant someone else writes those.
- AlbertCory 4y agoI don't think so. I think he meant "that doesn't appear in my books." I'm sure he reads them over critically before sending them off. anyhow, I'm not even sure he's the one who said that.
- thaumasiotes 4y agoBrandon Sanderson wrote about his process of writing Mistborn and putting it through focus groups. There were apparently several rounds of female readers complaining that he wasn't doing enough description of ballgowns.
- AlbertCory 4y agoMy nightmare as a male writer :) Fortunately I had a female editor who read over stuff like that with a critical eye. And no ball gowns in my books. I do have a wedding but I don't even mention what the bride was wearing. My bad.
- jonjacky 4y agoA friend in the book business once told me that publishers like big thick programming books because they take up space on bookstore shelves and deny that space to rival books!
- dredmorbius 4y agoI suspect K&R may have been written initially as an internal reference (for AT&T). Though it also pre-dated the era of mass-market computer books, say, 1995--2010 or so.