[Catalyst] Is Catalyst large enough to sustain a book?

[TCB]

I'm an absolute catalyst newbie (still getting through the tutorials) but a
pretty seasoned writer. Two Peach Pit books, over a hundred articles on topics
broadly related to computers and music. I think the right question is not 'could
catalyst sustain a book?' but 'is a book the right thing for catalyst and if so
what kind of book should it be?' Before anyone embarks on that task I would
wonder if the framework is still a bit too much of a moving target to make a
paper book the best option. It's hard enough to get a book out in a timely manner
for an application that has a major revision once per year. Trust me, I've done
it. With the speed at which cat is developing I'm not sure it would be the best
option. _If_ people decide it is the best option the next question is the target
market for the book. Perl programmers? People who know CGI well but want to get
beyond that? Web designers starting to program? Web app developers who know SQL
well but Perl not so well? RoR converts? Some combination of the above? Depending
on who is chosen as the target it's a very different book. 

Also, someone said in one of the threads that putting together the current wiki,
some turorials, and other sundries would be 'the cat book' and I think that's a
dangerous idea. Probably that would make things more confusing by putting a bunch
of different styles an opinions together that might even conflict with each
other. Another possible idea, instead of a paper book, might be a more detailed
set of [web based, easily modified as cat changes] tutorials that are officially
'blessed' by the main cat developers as representing both good code and good cat. 

This is something I'd be happy to help with since being a middling programmer at
best it's the only non-monetary way I might contribute to the cat community, but
I have to actually write a few apps in it before that can even be a consideration.

Just my bookish few cents,

TCB

On 27/04/06, Harley Mackenzie <hjm at bigpond.com> wrote:

>During the recent "What a waste of time" thread, it was raised that Catalyst
doesnt >have an "Agile Web Development with Rails" book available. I dont want to
waste >anyones time discussing the obvious bait in this thread, but the point is
valid >that the whole Catalyst community would greatly benefit from a
comprehensive book. >
>   * Does Catalyst have enough momentum and support to sustain a book?
>   * Without giving away confidential information, is anyone aware of a book
deing >developed?
>
>I would guess that any prospective publisher would be either OReilly, Apress,
>Manning (they dont seem to be too active in the Perl arena of late) or as an
>outside WROX (seem to go more for all in one books rather than specialist
>subjects). If there isnt a work in progress, is it worth developing a book
>proposal? 

Well, I'm all for helping develop a self-published pdf a la 47 signals.  Sri
seems to be most receptive to this approach as well.  I think the most
significant barrier to doing this is a.  getting people to do serious work for no
advance, and b.  getting a real professional publishing editor on board.  

I've got my own proposal to work up in the not too distant future, so that is
someone elses problem as it were.



I was also planning on doing some serious market research on the existing
catalyst populatin on the not too distant futrure as well, but that is dependent
on things like $job. 

But in a brief answer to your question, yes, probably.