From: adrian@ora.com (Adrian Nye)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.x-window
Subject: Re: Opinion of O'Reilly Guides to the X Window System
Date: 9 Oct 92 19:59:17 GMT
Distribution: fj
Organization: Workstation Div., Supermicro Systems Group, Sony Corporation

Message-Id: <9210091833.AA01212@spike.ora.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Oct 92 12:33:18 +0900


> I try to point out not only which books are good, but which
> books are best for people that can't afford to buy or read them all.

Then you should give information on the strengths and
weaknesses of all the books so that people can choose the books they 
need.  For example, some people know they will not be using UIL or 
subclassing.

> 1.  subclassing.  Whether you politically support or oppose subclassing
> Motif widgets, alot of users need to do it and are doing it.  The
> O'Reilly Xt and Motif books provide little useful information on this
> subject.  In contrast, the combination of the Asente/Swick book and the
> Berlage book provide enough info for most users to do useful work.

A large fraction of O'Reilly Vol 4 is about subclassing widgets such 
as Core, Primitive and Manager, or about features of Xt that are used 
only in widget writing.  There is much more information on 
subclassing in Vol 4 than in Doug Young's book, yet Ken gives more 
bibliography space to one of Doug's books than to all 10 of ours.

I agree that Asente/Swick is better for some of the intense 
details of Xt (not surprising since they wrote Xt).  What I dislike 
is Ken's dismissal of all the O'Reilly books without regard for or 
mention of their strong points.  Vol 6 is widely considered the best 
book for practical, industrial use of Motif widgets.  Yet he never 
acknowledges that fact.  All he says is that it doesn't cover UIL.
It's not the criticism I mind, it's the unfairness.

> 2.  UIL.  UIL is a standard part of Motif.  A complete tutorial on
> Motif should cover it.  Other Motif tutorials, such as Berlage's book,
> cover it.  Users can decide whether or not to use it.  I don't think
> it's right for books calling themselves "the definitive guides" to
> arbitrarily ignore standard functionality.

Vol 6 is already over 1000 pages, and so we made the decision to
leave UIL out, so we could retain deeper coverage of standard
Xt programming.  To do it justice would take at least 200 pages
which would not fit.  There is already a very brief introduction to
UIL in Vol 4.

Our intention is to cover UIL as soon as possible.

> 3.  Complex technical subjects.  In general, I've found the O'Reilly
> books to be lacking (compared to the competition) when it comes to
> discussing complex problems commonly found during industrial
> development.  For example, the Asente/Swick book is infinitely more
> useful than the O'Reilly books on the X Toolkit.  Perhaps the
> Asente/Swick book is extraordinary, but I think it is the resposibility
> of a useful bibliography to point this out.

Vol 6 is full of the most complex details about Motif, 
more than any other book, period.

What I dislike most is this generalizing of all O'Reilly books and
rolling them all into one entry in the bibliography.
They are by different authors and have different strong and weak 
points.  Volume One, for example, has more detail on how to correctly 
support type-ahead in forms entry than any other book, period.

Each O'Reilly book deserves its own entry in the bibliography
and discussion of both its good and bad points.

*************************************************************
Adrian Nye (314) 531-1231    Editor, The X Resource
O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Publishers of Nutshell Handbooks
4466 West Pine Blvd.  20-G   St. Louis MO 63108
Internet:   adrian@ora.com    	UUCP:   uunet!ora!adrian      
*************************************************************