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From: jimb@amd.UUCP (Jim Budler)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Pournelle Column this month
Message-ID: <970@amd.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Feb-85 00:27:54 EST
Article-I.D.: amd.970
Posted: Wed Feb 13 00:27:54 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 07:42:19 EST
References: <>
Reply-To: jimb@amd.UUCP (Jim Budler)
Organization: AMD MOSCAD
Lines: 46
Summary: 

In article <> jss@sjuvax.UUCP (J. Shapiro) writes:
>[Aren't you hungry...?]
>
>	The last time this subject came up I remained quiet.  I honestly didn't
>agree with much of what was being said, but this month's column has got me
>steamed.  Pournelle begins by talking about the flood of cruddy computer
>books (admiitting - to give him credit where due - that he has a vested
>interest).  He proceeds to advise people to go to the major bookstores and
>special order the books they can't find, and also to look at the books on
>the shelves and see to it that the store managers learn which publishers
>are publishing shlock.
>
>	Now, I agree that the vast majority of technical book sales to laymen
>occurs in large bookstores, and what he says makes sense.  Unfortunately,
>the rest of the description is a not so subtle plug for his publisher, Baen
>Books.  To partially quote:
>
>	"By 'bad books' I mean those that are poorly edited, filled with typos
>and misspelled words, crammed with jargon..." (Chaos Manor - Feb 85 Byte)
>
>I'll buy all of that. And Pournelle, as usual, goes on to write a technical 
>and jargon filled column. Most of the time I find his writing style
>refreshing, but the hypocrisy this month was a little much.
>
>	I plan to write to the editor, and to Jerry, and complain.  I would be
>curious to see how others feel about this month's column.

Having spent several hours going over the computer bookshelves of several
bookstores, including Computer Literacy, a computer bookstore, trying to
glean the wheat from the chaff, and finding 90% chaff, I agree with what he
said and took his plug with better spirit than you did.  

For every good book on any given computer subject there are many very poor
books on the same subject that will confound the beginning computer person.
How many introducing Macintosh books were there?  (IBM PC|Commodore 64|
Microsoft Basic|Lotus 1-2-3|...).  How many of each were any good? (0|1).

What's wrong with someone pointing out a known bad situation and then saying he
has an answer?  A plug?  So what.  Didn't Osborne plug his answer, Bill Gates
his answer (Microsoft Books), Lotus their answer?
-- 
 Jim Budler
 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
 (408) 749-5806
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