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Good stuff. And I was curious after seeing this if "Learn ... the Hard Way" was a brand that that Zed Shaw had trademarked or otherwise intended to keep exclusi
by dewitt 14y ago
Good stuff. And I was curious after seeing this if "Learn ... the Hard Way" was a brand that that Zed Shaw had trademarked or otherwise intended to keep exclusive. (Not that there necessarily would have been anything wrong with that, but still curious.)
But to my surprise, Shaw not only isn't proprietary about the brand, it looks like he is going out of his way to help other people appropriate it:
https://gitorious.org/learn-x-the-hard-way https://gitorious.org/learn-x-the-hard-way
"This is a skeleton LaTeX project that makes it easier to start working on a “Learn X The Hard Way” book. You simply clone this repository, change a few base files, and then you can start writing. It will also come with a small “meta book” that gives you advice for writing and publishing your book."
Very cool. While it seems that Steve Losh didn't use the actual templates above (he picked markdown instead of rst), it's neat that the overall style itself is designed to be reusable.
Best of luck with the new book!
- masklinn 14y ago> But to my surprise, Shaw not only isn't proprietary about the brand, it looks like he is going out of his way to help other people appropriate it I'm not sure why you were surprised, as far as I've seen Zed has generally gone out of his way to be a helpful guy. He's a bit raw and he doesn't like assholes, but he really doesn't deserve the bad rap he got in some circles. Most of it really comes from the aforementioned assholes, who happen to be more PR-savvy than him.
- zedshaw 14y agoUh, yeah they're not more PR savvy than I am. The vast majority of people that know about me think more like you do, and only a few mostly Rubyists think of me as some kind of boogeyman, which I also tend to cultivate since it's damn funny.
- dewitt 14y agoFWIW, I certainly didn't intend any disrespect (sorry that the person above jumped to that conclusion). I meant it more in the sense of a happy surprise, given that you had already freely distributed the content, also making the brand itself available was really going above and beyond.
- lukegru 14y agoOff topic, but almost done with Learn C the Hard Way. Great book! I was a little confused at first by pointer syntax, though. After reading K&R's C book it cleared things up for me, and then I found LCTHW great for learning more modern C practices. Thanks!
- krichman 14y agoIt's because earlier, unless I misremembered, someone used the name to create a work that wasn't up to Zed's standards and he told them to cut it out. He can be abrasive but he's a net win for free software. Most people angry with him are angry for immature reasons IMO.
- zedshaw 14y agoOh, I need to update that description. It's not LaTeX based anymore. EDIT: Alright done. Project actually now uses reStructuredText instead of LaTeX, mostly because of issues converting LaTeX to anything other than PDF.
- lukeholder 14y agoI would pay money for a learn golang the hard way book.
- codygman 14y agoIf I felt I were qualified, I would already be on it :D Perhaps after I finish "Go, The Standard Library" as well as have a few bigger projects under my belt. By then though, someone will have probably already started on it. To be honest, I believe I heard something about someone starting on this already.