Message-ID: <801@sjuvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Feb-85 02:01:49 EST
Article-I.D.: sjuvax.801
Posted: Tue Feb  5 02:01:49 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Feb-85 00:45:33 EST
Organization: Saint Josephs Univ. Phila., Pa.
Lines: 26

[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.

Message-ID: <432@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Feb-85 12:42:30 EST
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.432
Posted: Thu Feb  7 12:42:30 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Feb-85 07:58:35 EST
References: <801@sjuvax.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Office Systems Group, Reston, VA
Lines: 15

> 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.

What do you think writing to the editor will accomplish. Had the article
been maligning, pugnacious, or libelous then I might agree that a letter
to the editor would be warranted. But if its just to complain that you
don't like his style of writing then it might be easier to just not read
his column! SAVE A PIECE OF PAPER AND A PIECE OF A TREE (unless you write
to Byte via The Source or something).

						David P. Geller

Message-ID: <785@loral.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Feb-85 17:27:56 EST
Article-I.D.: loral.785
Posted: Sat Feb  9 17:27:56 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Feb-85 04:02:41 EST
References: <801@sjuvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: ian@loral.UUCP (Ian Kaplan)
Organization: Loral Instrumentation, San Diego
Lines: 26
Keywords: disgusting, Pournelle
Summary: 


  I too was rather disgusted by Pournelle pushing his own books once again.
  The assumption was that his books are much better than all that other
  trash.  I have not read them so I can not say, but I think it is a bad
  idea for an author to throw stones like this.  It is nearly impossible
  for a author to tell how good her/his book really is.  All one can say is
  that you worked hard on it and made it the best book you could under the
  circumstances.

  I did write Pournelle and the editors of Byte to complain about
  Pournelle's constant self promotion.  He basically said that he did not
  feel that it was unethical and that he would continue to promote his
  books in his column.  It seems clear to me that Bytes vaunted conflict of
  interest policy is not followed that closely when it comes to a popular
  author like Pournelle.

				 Ian Kaplan
				 Loral Data Flow Group
				 Loral Instrumentation
				 (619) 560-5888 x4812
			 USENET: {ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!sdcc6!loral!ian
			 ARPA:   sdcc6!loral!ian@UCSD
			 USPS:   8401 Aero Dr. San Diego, CA 92123

  The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the
  opinions of those who own this VAX.

Message-ID: <22300011@uok.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 10-Feb-85 13:49:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uok.22300011
Posted: Sun Feb 10 13:49:00 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 04:19:12 EST
References: <801@sjuvax.UUCP>
Lines: 10
Nf-ID: #R:sjuvax:-80100:uok:22300011:000:421
Nf-From: uok!mpackard    Feb 10 12:49:00 1985


+

He forgets that most of us have to buy our computerware (sp?)
and are not as priveleged as him.  Of course his position
has caused him to sound like a snob to us little people.  But
I must say I never met him and most peoples writing does not
match the way they speak, so I suspect he is probably a nice
guy.  The title of his column should probably be retitled
"The pournelle family mailbox, and what we threw away".

Message-ID: <94@mot.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 11-Feb-85 18:41:13 EST
Article-I.D.: mot.94
Posted: Mon Feb 11 18:41:13 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 07:36:56 EST
References: <801@sjuvax.UUCP>, <432@rlgvax.UUCP>
Organization: Motorola Microsystems, Phoenix AZ
Lines: 25

>
>> 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.
>
>What do you think writing to the editor will accomplish. Had the article
>been maligning, pugnacious, or libelous then I might agree that a letter
>to the editor would be warranted. But if its just to complain that you
>don't like his style of writing then it might be easier to just not read
>his column! SAVE A PIECE OF PAPER AND A PIECE OF A TREE (unless you write
>to Byte via The Source or something).
>
>						David P. Geller
Why wouldn't an editor or an author be interested in readers' feedback on 
the quality of the material in the magazine? He should be. 
(In this case ESPECIALLY if he is concerned with saving trees).

--------------------------------
Alan Filipski, UNIX group, Motorola Microsystems, Tempe, AZ U.S.A
{seismo | ihnp4 } ! ut-sally ! oakhill ! mot ! al
--------------------------------
Are we having fun yet, Zippy?

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
 UUCPnet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amd!jimb
 Compuserve:	72415,1200

Message-ID: <377@aicchi.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-Feb-85 15:55:58 EST
Article-I.D.: aicchi.377
Posted: Thu Feb 21 15:55:58 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Feb-85 01:25:55 EST
References: <> <970@amd.UUCP>
Reply-To: ignatz@aicchi.UUCP (Ihnat)
Organization: Analysts International Corp; Chicago Branch
Lines: 43
Keywords: Pournelle, Reference Texts

Actually, I agree with Jerry on this.  It used to be that I
could walk into, say, Kroch's and Brentano's, even, and find
Knuth's books.  True, the computer section was only one set
of shelves, but at least solid reference texts were available.

Today, any bookstore has a computer section that's longer than
the latest Cadillac, and just as senseless for me to peruse.  I
*don't* want to read any one of the 30 books on "Getting More From
Your Apple Basic", etc., ad nauseum.  Yes, yes--before you all
come to the defense of the poor beginner, I understand that everyone
has to start somewhere.  But so damn' many of these things are crap,
and so many are published, that relatively few solid reference texts
for someone like me ever seem to make it to the shelves.  I belong
to the Computer Science Book Club, mainly because they never pay any
attention to my cancellation letters.  Most books from them, while
masquerading as serious CS texts, are just one level above GMFYAB--
"How To Get More From CICS".  Fer cripes sakes, I even saw a title
the other day on "Software Defect Removal".  Yep.  Good, old debugging
now has a nice title.  (All of this isn't even to mention how obsolete
many of the texts the LofCS offers tend to be...)  And what with the
ACM and its SIGS having an increasing S/N ration, only the IEEE Computer
Society journal seems to be publishing decent timely stuff anymore.

How about it??  Does anyone have a reasonable source for someone who's
years out of school, looking for treatises and reference texts in areas
such as AI, network theory, etc., that don't have assignment problems in
the back and the word "Elementary" tacked on the front?  Any other
professional publications that aren't forums for someone to publish minor,
derivative works to satisfy their "Publish or Perish" requirements??

Sheesh, this started out as a comment and ended up as a flame...ah,
well, I'll leave it in this group.  I haven't been in contact for a while,
so the mail telling me I'm posting this in the wrong place will prove
that I've still got two-way communication with the net...

	"The next contract requires you to use RSX-11-M..."
		"Uhhh...."

-- 
	Dave Ihnat
	Analysts International Corporation
	(312) 882-4673
	ihnp4!aicchi!ignatz