Congratulations, PhiHo!  You finally annoyed someone enough with your 
comments that you get a response!

On Dec 19, 2004, at 10:53 PM, SmallSqueak wrote:
>> I think we should make Squeak recognizable to people who have heard of
>> it via public means like Alan's talks and the nublue book.
>
>    If Alan and Dan don't care then who cares ?
>
>    Do the authors of the Squeak books care ?

The point isn't whether Alan or Dan cares.  The point is to encourage 
the future members of the community.  I didn't write the white book nor 
co-edit the nublue book for people ALREADY in the Squeak community.  I 
wrote them for newcomers, to introduce them to Squeak (white book) and 
to the wonderful stuff inside/behind Squeak (nublue book).  So, yes, it 
is a concern if these newcomers go to http://www.squeak.org and find 
something that is unrecognizable as "Squeak."

>    Did they do anything to bring the contents of these books up to 
> date ?

The last update that I did was for Squeak 3.2 -- visit 
http://guzdial.cc.gatech.edu/squeakbook/  to see that update (just like 
it says in the book).  I can't get Prentice-Hall to publish a new 
edition, though -- not with a couple thousand unsold books in the 
warehouse.

I'd like to produce some more updated Squeak materials.  We continue to 
use Squeak in our classes at Georgia Tech 
(http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/cs2340), and we've started discussions 
about building a new course using Squeak for some of the new 
computing-related degree programs we're building.  Based on a few 
discussions, we might even be able to find a publisher for a new book 
on design that happens to use Squeak.

But it's hard to grok Squeak these days.  There are lots of "code 
words" out there that are hard to decipher.  It took me a long time to 
figure out that "Mantis" has something to do with bug-reporting (and 
I'm still not sure what yet), and I'm still not clear on the 
relationship between "Monticello" and "SqueakMap."  (And now there's 
something called "SqueakPeople" that I have no clue about.) Terms like 
"change set" and "file list" and "browser" provide a lead as to what 
they're about.  I know about the sources of information, like searching 
the mailing list archive and the Squeak Swiki (and SqueakFoundations 
and SqueakMap and...), but that's just knowing the clues.  It's still a 
pretty complicated process to find answers to what using Squeak is 
about today.

> BTW, does any one know how many of these books were sold ?

Yes, I do.  The white book has sold 3,011 units worldwide.  In the 
first six months of 2004, there were only 42 units sold -- 21 in the 
US, 2 in Canada, and 19 in "export" (mostly Japan and Singapore).  The 
nublue book has sold 1,381 units worldwide.  In the first six months of 
2004, the nublue book sold 52 units -- 25 in the US and 27 in export.

>
>    Maybe someone should start nagging the authors of these Squeak    
> books to share their wealth derived from Squeak

"Wealth"?  Have you written a book, PhiHo?  There ain't much profit in 
most book writing endeavors.  You do it because you want to, and you 
sink the time in because you think it's worth it. The royalty checks 
are nice, but the profit margins are pretty thin.  I'm quite sure that 
Prentice-Hall hasn't broken even on the nublue book.  I'm grateful that 
Alan Apt (our publisher) was willing to take a gamble and publish these 
books.

Mark

__________
Mark Guzdial : Georgia Tech : College of Computing/GVU
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
Collaborative Software Lab, http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/csl
http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~mark.guzdial/