4 ms·
The point about a specifically authored narrative leading to a deeper understanding is a good one, but what about the suitable length for that narrative? The le
by rsaarelm 14y ago
The point about a specifically authored narrative leading to a deeper understanding is a good one, but what about the suitable length for that narrative? The length of technical books is dictated by printing technology and market pressure (people think they get their money's worth if the book looks thick), not by what's the least amount of pages that can impart the most understanding.
Technical books are generally divided into chapters somewhere around 30 pages in length. This is also in the ballpark of the length of most standalone technical articles. So the book can be thought of as a series of shorter articles that form an overarching narrative, even if it's by a single author.
I wonder if things can go even more concise from the 30 page article form, and still maintain the property of being pleasant to read, easy to learn from and imparting a deeper understanding through a narrative going through multiple chapters. We are still bad at using proper hypertext for long-lasting useful and serious writing compared to the conventions in writing for print.
- rsaarelm 14y agoIf the Pareto principle applies to technical books, you should be able to write a 100-page version of a good 500-page technical book that still imparts 80 % of the understanding the original book did.
- nailer 14y ago> The length of technical books is dictated by printing technology You're equating books with printed material.
- rsaarelm 14y agoThe equation is pretty much built into the connotations of the word as it's currently used. Documents called "articles", "reports", "wikis" or "blogs" don't create the expectation of potentially being printed and bound like documents called "books" do, even if all of them are being viewed using a web browser. This is most likely going to change, but we don't seem to be there yet. It might even be that the word "book" just can't shake off the print connotation, and will end up going the way of "folio" and "vellum" as an obsolete format-specific word when printed books start becoming curiosities.