4 ms·

sorry, whenever i hear "tim o'reilly" nowadays i think "the company which back in the day published good books, now they publish everything, mostly crap" so be

by franze 14y ago

sorry, whenever i hear "tim o'reilly" nowadays i think "the company which back in the day published good books, now they publish everything, mostly crap" so before he proclaims his thoughts about he next big thing, he should get his own ( publishing) house in order (i.e.: read the books he publishes). big fan once, now just meeeh...

pkaler 14y ago
This is a classic case of middlebrow dismissal. Please read the original article and think about it critically before commenting. If you would like to comment on Tim O'Reilly as a person please ensure your comments are not ad hominem. http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem Correct punctuation would also make it easier for other commenters to read and critically think about your comment.
- tgrass 14y ago
  Nothing about his punctuation makes his comment difficult to understand.
  - alexqgb 14y ago
    Perhaps, but deliberate illiteracy makes it harder to take seriously.
  - wpietri 14y ago
    But it does make it harder to read.
- franze 14y ago
  yes, it is a rant. a public rant in a forum where tim holds an account. i like reading his interviews and i have no quarrel with the points he makes, but: i'm saddend and also pissed of by the declining quality of the books with his name on the cover. if there is just a 0.0000001% chance that tim reads my comment and decides to read some of his books over christmas, then it was time well spent.
  - yuhong 14y ago
    Reminds me of this old thread, which has timoreilly's only post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2477960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2477960
InclinedPlane 14y ago
What's wrong with their books? O'Reilly has always been the McDonalds or Starbucks of techbooks. They provide a consistent level of quality, not necessarily the best, but decent enough. I think that's probably still true. The only difference being that now there are so many more good tech resources and people like yourself have grown out of the need for books at that level. You have to remember, O'Reilly was the best back in the era when your other choices were utter shit like "Learn Java in 21 Days" and "An Idiot's Guide to Haskell". Today O'Reilly books are still vastly superior to that kind of dreck but compared to, say, Apress, Manning, pragprog, etc. they aren't necessarily superior.
- elviejo 14y ago
  "An Idiots Guido to Haskell" ?? I would read that ;-)
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    The irony is that the first chapter is about advanced category theory and chapter 2 is about monads.
- Zigurd 14y ago
  It is much harder to position a book than it used to be. Online documentation, both first-party and third-party, is far better than when O'Reilly started publishing. This makes beginner's books a difficult market, and there is a glut of books for beginners. So you have to make an intermediate/expert book, for a more-demanding market, that hangs together over several hundred pages. You have to get the market to be aware of a non-beginner's book to capture a large share of the people who stay with a topic long enough to need their second book. And you have to do it quickly on short money.

by franze 14y ago

pkaler 14y ago

This is a classic case of middlebrow dismissal. Please read the original article and think about it critically before commenting. If you would like to comment on Tim O'Reilly as a person please ensure your comments are not ad hominem. http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem Correct punctuation would also make it easier for other commenters to read and critically think about your comment.

tgrass 14y ago
Nothing about his punctuation makes his comment difficult to understand.
- alexqgb 14y ago
  Perhaps, but deliberate illiteracy makes it harder to take seriously.
- wpietri 14y ago
  But it does make it harder to read.
franze 14y ago
yes, it is a rant. a public rant in a forum where tim holds an account. i like reading his interviews and i have no quarrel with the points he makes, but: i'm saddend and also pissed of by the declining quality of the books with his name on the cover. if there is just a 0.0000001% chance that tim reads my comment and decides to read some of his books over christmas, then it was time well spent.
- yuhong 14y ago
  Reminds me of this old thread, which has timoreilly's only post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2477960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2477960

InclinedPlane 14y ago

What's wrong with their books? O'Reilly has always been the McDonalds or Starbucks of techbooks. They provide a consistent level of quality, not necessarily the best, but decent enough. I think that's probably still true. The only difference being that now there are so many more good tech resources and people like yourself have grown out of the need for books at that level. You have to remember, O'Reilly was the best back in the era when your other choices were utter shit like "Learn Java in 21 Days" and "An Idiot's Guide to Haskell". Today O'Reilly books are still vastly superior to that kind of dreck but compared to, say, Apress, Manning, pragprog, etc. they aren't necessarily superior.

elviejo 14y ago
"An Idiots Guido to Haskell" ?? I would read that ;-)
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  The irony is that the first chapter is about advanced category theory and chapter 2 is about monads.
Zigurd 14y ago
It is much harder to position a book than it used to be. Online documentation, both first-party and third-party, is far better than when O'Reilly started publishing. This makes beginner's books a difficult market, and there is a glut of books for beginners. So you have to make an intermediate/expert book, for a more-demanding market, that hangs together over several hundred pages. You have to get the market to be aware of a non-beginner's book to capture a large share of the people who stay with a topic long enough to need their second book. And you have to do it quickly on short money.