[HN Gopher] Show HN: DevBooks - Help Developers find indy books
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: DevBooks - Help Developers find indy books
Author : simon-holdorf
Score : 106 points
Date : 2021-01-09 08:43 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thesmartcoder.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (thesmartcoder.dev)
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| I'll throw my "Learn Elixir by building 5 games" book into the
| ring:
|
| https://alchemist.camp/little-potions
|
| It's still in pre-release (and discounted to $15) but but the
| reception has been good so far. I don't have a testimonial page
| for it yet or much marketing behind it, but but you can find
| comments on it on Twitter and some of my YT videos.
| hawkweed wrote:
| I've just bought it. At the first glance it's very basic. Hope,
| that you will ehnance it with some real world example. The way
| it is... it looks like five ways to write Hello World program.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| It's explicitly aimed at people with zero Elixir experience,
| as the description says. Every project is a game, also as the
| description says.
|
| If you'd like a refund, just reply to the welcome email.
| simon-holdorf wrote:
| Thanks, looking forward to your submission!
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| I submitted it before commenting here.
|
| Did you receive it or was there some issue with the form on
| the site?
|
| I'm not sure, but possibly manually entering "Elixir" as a
| category along with "Programming" could have caused it to
| break.
| simon-holdorf wrote:
| No it's there, no worries, but so are many others - will
| review it asap :)
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| Thanks and good luck with the site!
|
| I'm a huge fan of tech books and pretty regularly share
| when I see discounts on Manning, Pragprog or especially
| Humble Bundle.
| simon-holdorf wrote:
| Thank you, I hope it will become a cool place for
| developers in the future!
|
| Your book is up, thanks for submitting it!
| geraldbauer wrote:
| Great initiative. FYI: I help devs find indy (and regular) books
| on ruby @ http://planetruby.github.io/books
|
| PS: The website source and data is public domain / open. Fork
| away for other languages / topics more than welcome :-).
| de_nied wrote:
| Looking at the site, I think there should be a strict open-source
| education model. Pretty much all of the books I've seen look no
| different than your average blog post, and not interesting or
| good ones at that. The only book I saw that I thought might
| actually be worth any time is "The Case of IBM 386 PC: A
| Detective Story for Techies."
|
| "Indy books" should be about indie subjects. Topics that have
| little public information on them, but that can be interesting,
| valuable, or in some way beneficial. Yet all I see are books that
| hold the equivalent of 2010's Buzzfeed titles. Indie books could
| even be from indie authors, in the regard of creative writing (as
| my example above). But listing books on how to do something
| that's been discussed, and I don't think I'm exaggerating here,
| millions of times, doesn't seem like you're "helping developers
| find indie books."
|
| I like the concept, but I'm not a fan of the execution. Of
| course, I'm a bit biased in the manner as I think anything beyond
| using the manual, Google, Discord/IRC, and forum, is generally a
| complete waste of time. Want to know anything? Manual > Google >
| Discord/IRC > forum post.
| mtlynch wrote:
| > _But listing books on how to do something that 's been
| discussed, and I don't think I'm exaggerating here, millions of
| times, doesn't seem like you're "helping developers find indie
| books."_
|
| Why shouldn't there be indie books about subjects that are
| discussed frequently?
|
| If something has been discussed millions of times, it means
| that the good information is scattered across several different
| sources and a lay person has no way of distinguishing between
| good and bad advice.
|
| I've happily paid for indie books in the past few years from
| authors I trust because I want to read their perspective and
| information that they've curated.
|
| Two I'll mention in particular:
|
| _Hello Web App_ by Tracy Osborn - This is a book about web
| design, which is discussed in millions of places, but Tracy 's
| book gathers together high-quality information in a concise
| book.
|
| _Starting & Sustaining_ by Garrett Dimon - This is about
| running a small SaaS app. Another topic discussed in tons of
| places online, but Garrett is telling it from the context of
| his personal experience running a successful SaaS app for
| several years.
| kowlo wrote:
| Do you think Indie Games should also only be about indie
| subjects?
| de_nied wrote:
| I'm confused as to what your point is. The title had to do
| with indie books, not indie games. The two aren't really
| comparable in this scenario because indie games rely on the
| creativity of the people making them. The reason they're
| called indie is because people can't afford a large budget
| because they're not from or related to a major company.
|
| If we take the same definition, as you did, and apply it to
| books written for developers, then I'm afraid an "indie book"
| in your context would be literally anything written by anyone
| on the internet.
|
| My definition was that indie implied a sort of "unknown," as
| indie games often are.
| kowlo wrote:
| It doesn't sound like you're confused about my point...
|
| Indie Books are books published outside of mainstream
| publishing. You're misrepresenting what Indie Books are
| with your own opinion of what you want to see on the site
| instead.
| de_nied wrote:
| >Indie Books are books published outside of mainstream
| publishing.
|
| If the books are books for developers, then by now it's
| clear that they will be sold online. What effect does
| "mainstream publishing" have on publishing material on
| the internet? It's the internet. There is 0 meaningful
| difference if a book has mainstream publishing if both
| books can easily be listed on Amazon, Ebay, or anywhere
| else, because it's the internet.
| codazoda wrote:
| I ready "indy" as Independent. To me, that just means self
| published without a publishers backing.
|
| I plan to submit Splash of Code, which teaches brand new
| developers JavaScript by creating art. It's designed like the
| books I grew up on where you simply copy the authors code and
| then run it, plus it includes additional explanations.
|
| https://splashofcode.com
|
| I don't know any definition of "indy" that means "little public
| information".
|
| Maybe a voting mechanism would float the good stuff to the top
| and maybe that's planned if the site catches on. Bravo to the
| builder.
| geraldbauer wrote:
| Great initiative: FYI: I help devs find indy (and regular) books
| on crypto (programming). The good books @
| https://openblockchains.github.io/crypto-books/ The bad and ugly
| @ https://openblockchains.github.io/bitcon-books/
|
| PS: Again the website sources and data are public domain / open.
| Fork aways for other languages / topics more than welcome :-).
| asicsp wrote:
| Suggestions:
|
| * provide a way for including both free and paid versions
|
| * multiple links for paid version
|
| My ebooks are free to read online [0] and PDF/EPUB versions can
| be purchased. I've submitted the free version for now for one of
| the books.
|
| [0] https://github.com/learnbyexample/scripting_course#ebooks
| simon-holdorf wrote:
| Thanks for comment, I will add that to the roadmap!
| boffinism wrote:
| How heavily are submissions curated? What % of submissions do you
| reject, and what are your criteria for acceptance?
|
| The problem with indy books is huge quality variability, and
| without indicators of quality like reviews and testimonials, I'd
| only want to see a big catalogue of them if that catalogue was
| very carefully selected.
| simon-holdorf wrote:
| We try our best to only accept books that we think are worth
| recommending. That said, I'm working on new implementations
| regarding your points, like votes, testimonials, ratings...
| DataCrayon wrote:
| It's a great idea. I've submitted two of my books:
|
| - Data Analysis with Rust Notebooks
| (https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/data-analysis-with-rust-...)
|
| - Practical Evolutionary Algorithms
| (https://datacrayon.com/shop/product/practical-evolutionary-a...)
|
| I hope they fit in!
| simon-holdorf wrote:
| Thanks for your submissions, books are up :)
| DataCrayon wrote:
| Very cool - thank you for adding them!
| simon-holdorf wrote:
| Thank you, will look at them asap!
| agbell wrote:
| Great list! I wish there were a term like novella for non-
| fiction.
|
| Many of these, I suspect are not book length but more essay or
| novella length (< 30,000 words ).
|
| That is fine, I don't need people to pad out a book, but I'd like
| to understand the length a bit before hand.
| mooreds wrote:
| I too have a book that is on this list:
| https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/the-book/
|
| I love the idea of highlighting overlooked books. But when I
| submitted, maybe I misunderstood the list. From what I read here,
| it seems like the list maintainers are looking to promote self
| published books. Or those published by someone other than an non
| big tech publisher (O'Reilly, APress, Manning)? It's a bit
| unclear to me.
|
| My book was published by APress. I'm proud of it, but maybe it
| doesn't belong on this list?
| simon-holdorf wrote:
| You should be proud of that and you should be on the list :)
|
| If APress, or any comparable company wpuld suggest adding all
| their books, I will happily decline that. This is an
| experiment. I don't know if things work out as expected but I
| follow the inspect and adapt pattern here. As long as this is
| not getting abused, everythings fine for me.
| mooreds wrote:
| Ah, fair enough, thanks for clarifying! Thanks for promoting
| the hard work of other authors.
| petr25102018 wrote:
| Nice initiative!
|
| I will publish my own book this year so it is great to see some
| love for indie publishing :-)
|
| I would also be very much interested in finding some reviewers
| that would be willing to help review say 2-3 chapters of my book
| in exchange for getting the final version. Is anybody here
| interested in that or do you know of a place where I could get
| some interested beta-readers?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-01-09 23:01 UTC)