Writing a book on Seaside

Hello,

I'm writing a book on Seaside. Here is the plan and some ideas:
http://www.enseirb.fr/~cassou/SeasideBook.pdf

*Please please* comment and give me advices and new ideas. I need you to
force me working on this very (too?) big project.

I would really like a book on Seaside to help the community amd make
Seaside a killer app.


Thanks

On 7/1/06 7:24 AM, "Damien Cassou" <[hidden email]> wrote:

I'm pleased that somebody who knows a lot about Smalltalk is writing a book
on Seaside. It's necessary. The only real resource is David Shaffer's
tutorial, and for a newbie, there are some leaps he makes that confuse one
for a couple of days.

If you want my advice, and you asked, then the first thing you need to do is
nail down who you are writing the book for. If it's for bit-heads, then you
can make it as incomprehensible as you like. If not, then I suggest you try
to get into the head of the ignorant person you're writing it for.

Secondly, you are going to need an editor. You English is unidiomatic. It's
"advice" not "advices". If you can't detect the difference between "What
does not solve Seaside" and "What Seaside does not solve" then you need
somebody who does. If you think it doesn't matter, then you shouldn't be
writing a book.

I'm an editor. I'd be willing to do that for you for free.
http://www.dynamicword.com

If you don't want my help, I do suggest you find a native English speaker to
review your use of idiom.

For what it's worth, I've written 25,000 words in the last month on the
topic of learning Smalltalk/Squeak/Seaside. You can see it in my blog here:
http://www.brokentomb.com

Chris Cunnington
Toronto

Chris Cunnington writes:
 > On 7/1/06 7:24 AM, "Damien Cassou" <[hidden email]> wrote:
 > I'm pleased that somebody who knows a lot about Smalltalk is writing a book
 > on Seaside. It's necessary. The only real resource is David Shaffer's
 > tutorial, and for a newbie, there are some leaps he makes that confuse one
 > for a couple of days.

A book on Seaside would be a great asset to the community.

Good luck
Bryce

First, I would like to thank you for the interest you show for my book.

> I'm pleased that somebody who knows a lot about Smalltalk is writing a book
> on Seaside.


I'm not sure I know a lot about Smalltalk as I discovered it two years
ago for the first time.


> It's necessary. The only real resource is David Shaffer's
> tutorial, and for a newbie, there are some leaps he makes that confuse one
> for a couple of days.


Lukas Renggli wrote a tutorial, exercices and slides.
http://www.lukas-renggli.ch


> If you want my advice, and you asked, then the first thing you need to do is
> nail down who you are writing the book for. If it's for bit-heads, then you
> can make it as incomprehensible as you like. If not, then I suggest you try
> to get into the head of the ignorant person you're writing it for.


I'm writing this book for persons who know nothing about Seaside.
Smalltalk knowledge is not necessary too because a chapter will be
written on this at the end of the book.


> Secondly, you are going to need an editor. You English is unidiomatic. It's
> "advice" not "advices". If you can't detect the difference between "What
> does not solve Seaside" and "What Seaside does not solve" then you need
> somebody who does. If you think it doesn't matter, then you shouldn't be
> writing a book.


I do not know the difference between the two sentences and I know I need
people to read me and correct me. That was part of what I asked in my
previous mail. But I do not need such kind of person currently because
what I wrote is highly subject to change and I do not want people to
loose their time.


> I'm an editor. I'd be willing to do that for you for free.


It's very nice, thank you very much. Take care, I will really ask you
when I need someone to correct what I wrote :-)


> For what it's worth, I've written 25,000 words in the last month on the
> topic of learning Smalltalk/Squeak/Seaside. You can see it in my blog here:
> http://www.brokentomb.com


Thank you for this link and thank you for your comment.


Bye

Fantastic! The only thing I would ask for is a table of contents. This is a tabbed column you can show on the left of the screen and click on the various topics. I find that with a good table of contents and Adobe Reader's search function, I can find what I'm looking for in a pdf document pretty easily.

Best regards and thanks for your contributions.

Michael

On Jul 1, 2006, at 9:59 PM, Michael Doherty wrote:

>  I find that with a good table of contents and Adobe Reader's  
> search function, I can find what I'm looking for in a pdf document  
> pretty easily.


That's very easy with LaTeX , which I assume Damien is using. load  
the hyperref package, and make bookmarks.

\usepackage[bookmarks]{hyperref}

Good luck on the book :)

Yann

> That's very easy with LaTeX , which I assume Damien is using. load the
> hyperref package, and make bookmarks.
>
> \usepackage[bookmarks]{hyperref}
>
> Good luck on the book :)


Done ! Thank you

http://www.enseirb.fr/~cassou/SeasideBook.pdf

Hi,

Chris Cunnington wrote:
>
> Secondly, you are going to need an editor. You English is unidiomatic. It's
> "advice" not "advices".

Hi,

I have seen a presentation of "Just a Word" project
http://193.133.140.102/JustTheWord/
created by James Thomas.

One can browse English collocations there and by example find the most
fitting one.
--
Matej Kosik

> http://193.133.140.102/JustTheWord/

Thanks a lot for the link!

Cheers,
Alexandre

--
_,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:
Alexandre Bergel  http://www.cs.tcd.ie/Alexandre.Bergel
^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;.

Is this book still available anywhere on line? I'd like to learn  
seaside for a student project. Thanks from a part time squeaker.

-Daniel


On Jul 1, 2006, at 6:05 PM, Damien Cassou wrote:

Damien Cassou wrote

I'm writing this book for persons who know nothing about Seaside.
Smalltalk knowledge is not necessary too...

Something that I wish ALL writers would do is find a representative student, and then without coaching, listen to where they have trouble with the lesson.  Often as not, it will be some peripheral detail that you have never considered; very simple things like incomplete descriptions, inconsistent terminology, and unexpected differences between program versions can make it impossible to follow even a simple concept. Two or three of these difficulties will unnecessarily frustrate a novice, and may alienate them from ever approaching your subject again!

On 15-Nov-06, at 12:44 PM, Another Dave wrote:

Exactly - and then after fixing those problems run it past the same  
victim for review. And *then* past another person that hasn't been  
'polluted'.


tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Useful random insult:- Runs squares around the competition.

Another Dave a écrit :
Good idea

[hidden email] a écrit :
> Is this book still available anywhere on line? I'd like to learn seaside
> for a student project. Thanks from a part time squeaker.

It's still not written :-( Sorry