Re: [DOCS] Re: [HACKERS] Outline for PostgreSQL book

Hello,

I just joined this list and am getting into the middle of this thread,
but I did go back and read the archives.

Just a few comments.

To answer a previous question, I like PDFs.

I like the approach that Bruce Eckel has taken to writing his last
couple of books. It was somewhat of an opensource approach. He wrote the
book and kept it on his site in PDF format and released regular updates
based on either his additions to the book or corrections of errors and
such by readers. It helped him to develop a good rapport with his
audience. I do not believe the book being available on the web really
impacted the sales of the published book that much. I know I printed one
copy and purchased one copy.
http://www.BruceEckel.com/

One thing to consider when writing the book is keeping it on target
about PostgreSQL. I was browsing Amazon and SQL books and was reading
about the MySQL book by O'Reilly. It got some really bad reviews based
it being to general on databases and not specific about MySQL. Many said
great db book, poor MySQL book.
Read about it at, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565924347 .

Their are many books which cover the basics of databases and database
design and you list a few below. What is needed is a PostgreSQL book.
Their will be overlap, but the emphasis should be on database
development with PostgreSQL. That is what will differentiate it from
others.

Addison Wesley is an excellent publisher as is O'Reilly. I would
recommend trying the above approach when writing the book and find a
publisher friendly to the idea. Bruce's Thinking in Java was published
by Prentice Hall. I don't know about any of the other publishers.

Jimmie Houchin


Bruce Momjian wrote:
[snip]
> FYI, I just did bibliography, and got:
>
>   (a) The Practical SQL Handbook, Bowman et al., Addison Wesley
>   (b) Web Development with PHP and PostgreSQL, \ldots{}, Addison Wesley
>   (c) A Guide to The SQL Standard, C.J. Date, Addison Wesley
>   (d) An Introduction to Database Systems, C.J. Date, Addison Wesley
>   (e) SQL For Smarties, Joe Celko, Morgan, Kaufmann
>
> Looks like Addision Wesley is the winner.
>
> --
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