Richard Grimes' book "Developing Applications With Visual Studio.NET"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andy Turner
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Andy Turner

[Hopefully Richard can answer this one himself!]

I'm thinking of buying this book because I like the angle it's coming
from and I found his previous DCOM book more enlightening than most.
The thing is, it's 18 months old now (an age in .NET terms!), and some
stores (such as www.compman.co.uk) only list is as on special order.
This leads me to wonder whether there is a second edition due out
soon, that I should hang on for?

On a more general note, I've got a couple of older edition books,
where I'd quite like the newer editions. Do publishers ever do upgrade
procedures, where I send in my old book and pay a little fee for the
new one, or do I just have to try and flog the old one on eBay?

Cheers


andyt
 
Yes, its REALLY annoying to buy a book and a few weeks
later find an updated edition on the shelves.
I try to never buy a computer book that is more than 2
years old, and never unless it mentions the version of the
software it covers.

In the USA, at least in Arizona, we have these stores
called 'Half-Price Books'. Basically, you take in your old
books and they give you a pittance for them and they then
sell them at half the cover price. They are full of books
on such things VB5, SQL Server 6.5 and HTML 3
You can even find Turbo Pascal books there!
Its not worth selling them on Ebay, they are usually heavy
and the postage costs makes it uneconomic.
 
You're dreaming on the "low-cost publisher upgrade" concept. It's a nice
dream, but no way are publishers going to give away product.

As for watching for new editions of books, I usually watch the publisher
website. O'Reilly is pretty good about broadcasting upcoming releases. I'm
not sure about Addison-Wesley but those are the people I'd contact if you
can't find the author.
 
I don't know about Richard's book, but I do know that second and third
editions of popular tech books are pretty common. Addison-Wesley and MSPress
(both of whom I work with) are planning second editions of various .NET
books already.
 
Well, with all due respect, there's no way you've never heard of Richard's
book. It's published by Microsoft Press and is the best book (out of 3 I've
read) for Managed C++.

Cheers,
Stoyan
 
I don't know about Richard's book, but I do know that second and third
editions of popular tech books are pretty common. Addison-Wesley and MSPress
(both of whom I work with) are planning second editions of various .NET
books already.
Click to expand...

OK, cheers to all who answered. Richard himself doesn't seem to be
around, so perhaps he's busy with the second edition! I've working
through a different book at the minute, so I can afford to wait a
while and see what happens. Though I might try contacting Richard
directly, I just figured I'd try a less entrusive route first.


andyt
 
Andy said:
[Hopefully Richard can answer this one himself!]

I'm thinking of buying this book because I like the angle it's coming
from and I found his previous DCOM book more enlightening than most.
The thing is, it's 18 months old now (an age in .NET terms!), and some
stores (such as www.compman.co.uk) only list is as on special order.
This leads me to wonder whether there is a second edition due out
soon, that I should hang on for?
Click to expand...

I haven't updated the book for v1.1, but for the second printing I did do an
update for erata from the first printing. I have a vague idea to do a 2nd
edition for Whidbey, but that will be a long way off (and I really do need
some persuading).

I have done a 2nd edition for my Managed C++ book where I added the new
features that appeared in VS.NET 2003 (Everett).
On a more general note, I've got a couple of older edition books,
where I'd quite like the newer editions. Do publishers ever do upgrade
procedures, where I send in my old book and pay a little fee for the
new one, or do I just have to try and flog the old one on eBay?
Click to expand...

It depends on the book. On the one hand its not nice letting a book die (as
my ATL books have had to, because I don't think there is enough of a market
for me to spend the effor updating them). On the other hand, if the
publisher thinks there is a market, then its worth the effort on commercial
grounds.

For example, an update for my AW book for Whidbey will actually be a total
rewrite. When you consider that for the original book I spent 18 months
working with .NET before I started writing, and then a solid 6 months of
writing followed by 3 months of editing, you'll consider that the book was a
considerable effort and the royalties needed to reflect that. Also, I needed
some income during that time (OK the initial 18 months were funded by
royalties from my other books and .NET articles and talks at conferences),
and few publishers are likely to pay an advanced that is equivalent to 6
months of a developer's income (for example).

With a few notable exceptions I guess most tech books are labours of love
rather than commercial undertakings. Now that the US economy is so bad I
would imagine that it is more a labour of love these days.

Richard
 
I didn't say I hadn't *heard* about it; I meant to say I didn't know when it
would be published. :-)
 
Andy said:
[Hopefully Richard can answer this one himself!]

I'm thinking of buying this book because I like the angle it's coming
from and I found his previous DCOM book more enlightening than most.
The thing is, it's 18 months old now (an age in .NET terms!), and some
stores (such as www.compman.co.uk) only list is as on special order.
This leads me to wonder whether there is a second edition due out
soon, that I should hang on for?
Click to expand...

I haven't updated the book for v1.1, but for the second printing I did do an
update for erata from the first printing. I have a vague idea to do a 2nd
edition for Whidbey, but that will be a long way off (and I really do need
some persuading).
Click to expand...

OK, cheers for that Richard. I'll look into buying the original
edition, though I'll wait until I've finished with the book I'm
currently ploughing through, and then I suspect yours will add more
detail and depth.

It depends on the book. On the one hand its not nice letting a book die (as
my ATL books have had to, because I don't think there is enough of a market
for me to spend the effor updating them). On the other hand, if the
publisher thinks there is a market, then its worth the effort on commercial
grounds.
Click to expand...

Yeah, fair enough on the ATL books because ATL isn't really a moving
technology anymore. but of course .NET is.


Cheers for the reply.


andyt
 
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