tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430866.post112925197317063185..comments2024-01-02T08:54:14.406-05:00Comments on Peter Bromberg's UnBlog: On Technical Books, Accuracy, and "Holier than Thou" pedantic attitudespeterbromberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18173639411723574123noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430866.post-1129572400582646022005-10-17T13:06:00.000-05:002005-10-17T13:06:00.000-05:00Amen. I hope that authors will not loose sight of ...Amen. I hope that authors will not loose sight of the importance of excepting this important fact, and why its affect is more important then there writing technique.peterbromberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18173639411723574123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430866.post-1129567897880555192005-10-17T11:51:00.000-05:002005-10-17T11:51:00.000-05:00Editting is a lost art.Beyond checking that words ...Editting is a lost art.<BR/><BR/>Beyond checking that words are spelled correctly (even if they're the wrong words -- homonyms, etc), it's as if nobody's bothering. Cursory reading reveals big problems before you even get to the technical matter, even in the respected houses.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430866.post-1129316563223088262005-10-14T14:02:00.000-05:002005-10-14T14:02:00.000-05:00"if you are a reader, don't trust everything you r..."if you are a reader, don't trust everything you read!"<BR/><BR/>...<BR/><BR/>I hate to say it - but it's true. There used to be a time when you could trust authors...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430866.post-1129308932688497722005-10-14T11:55:00.000-05:002005-10-14T11:55:00.000-05:00Jens, Regarding the comment about "Nothing" being ...Jens, <BR/>Regarding the comment about "Nothing" being passed into a method ByValue, my post was specifically directed at the C# language. VB.NET is an entirely other animal, and thankfully for the last few years I haven't been forced to deal with it much.peterbromberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18173639411723574123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430866.post-1129294717593278432005-10-14T07:58:00.000-05:002005-10-14T07:58:00.000-05:00Interesting Comment about wiki-style. In fact, an ...Interesting Comment about wiki-style. In fact, an author friend of mine who has successfully self-published his last book (because the original publisher "dumped" him in mid-stream) says that in 5 years, printed books will be obsolete. Books will, instead, be "live web sites / wikis".peterbromberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18173639411723574123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430866.post-1129270369107453742005-10-14T01:12:00.000-05:002005-10-14T01:12:00.000-05:00I agree, but isn't it true that if you pass a refe...I agree, but isn't it true that if you pass a reference-type argument with the value of Nothing in ByValue, and you instantiatie that variable in the method,the calling varibale stays Nothing, because the reference type variable is actually a pointer to something and because it's a ByVal, it's a copy of the calling pointer.<BR/>To have the calling variable see that object instance that you created inside the method, you need to pass the variable in as a ByRef.<BR/><BR/>JensAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430866.post-1129269482362725132005-10-14T00:58:00.000-05:002005-10-14T00:58:00.000-05:00There's definitely technical errors in pretty much...There's definitely technical errors in pretty much every tech book I've ever seen, but it is disconcerting when the fundamental concepts aren't grok'd by the author.<BR/><BR/>There's the argument of making such works more communal/wiki-style entities to help catch such situations (a view of the current authorship as too ivory tower, ala CatB), but that's probably overkill - good tech reviewers (like yourself, it sounds like!) can help catch the lion's share of issues.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com