Hey, Snorkers -- thanks for writing. I disagree with two of your points:
If online reference was really that great, then the burgeoning market for reference/tutorial books would die.
I don't think that's true. I guess the best way to show that would be to point to a project with *excellent* documentation, and then show that there's still a market for outside books etc. How about Twitter? There are books about that, although it's hard to imagine that anything *needs* documentation there. Yet there it is. Lynda.com just released its Twitter Essential Training course, and as Lynda said in her latest newsletter:
Some Twitterers thought it was nuts to publish a course on this topic since it is a fairly intuitive application, while others were tweeting our praises for teaching them aspects of Twitter they didn’t know about.
Secondly, you write: I'd also like to think that some of the experienced Drupal developers are actually getting financial payback for all work they do, by publishing books.
But the money's not going to them! It's going to schmucks like me. Writing and developing are very different skills, and rare is the person who has the skills and time to dedicate to both. Consider: Using Drupal took six people a year to write, as far as I can tell. Splitting one royalty check six ways is no way to make a living. That's because they all have other jobs: They're developers and themers and such.
On the other hand, I wrote Save My Home in a month, and when my Drupal book for Peachpit is done I'm guessing it'll have taken about two months of solid work (spread over a year). Practice makes presto, or something. :)
Hey, Snorkers -- thanks for writing. I disagree with two of your points:
If online reference was really that great, then the burgeoning market for reference/tutorial books would die.
I don't think that's true. I guess the best way to show that would be to point to a project with *excellent* documentation, and then show that there's still a market for outside books etc. How about Twitter? There are books about that, although it's hard to imagine that anything *needs* documentation there. Yet there it is. Lynda.com just released its Twitter Essential Training course, and as Lynda said in her latest newsletter:
Secondly, you write:
I'd also like to think that some of the experienced Drupal developers are actually getting financial payback for all work they do, by publishing books.
But the money's not going to them! It's going to schmucks like me. Writing and developing are very different skills, and rare is the person who has the skills and time to dedicate to both. Consider: Using Drupal took six people a year to write, as far as I can tell. Splitting one royalty check six ways is no way to make a living. That's because they all have other jobs: They're developers and themers and such.
On the other hand, I wrote Save My Home in a month, and when my Drupal book for Peachpit is done I'm guessing it'll have taken about two months of solid work (spread over a year). Practice makes presto, or something. :)