[Catalyst] O'Reilly Radar

[Christopher H. Laco]

Ovid wrote:
> --- "Christopher H. Laco" <claco at chrislaco.com> wrote:
> 
>> Whah? I think O'Reilly has, or is slipping off the deep end
>> over the last year. I'm not sure if it's a 
>> too-big-for-our-britches syndrome, or just a loss of touch
>> with the community; the flip flop from publishing quality 
>> books towards publishing what buzzwords the sheep hear and
>> look for.
> 
> Since I do a lot of tech reviews for O'Reilly and am fairly familiar
> with them, I can assure you that they are not "off the deep end". 
> O'Reilly has long had a strong commitment to Perl and the Perl
> community.  However, they have no choice but to respond to market
> forces.  A publisher who doesn't consider that is doomed.  Putting

Right, but only after they become a giant gorilla.
Long ago, the apeal of O'Reilly books [for me] was they they were great
books from an underdog who would pursue new book topics with the
recklass abandon that a small publisher could. I don't see that flame
from them any more.

That doesn't mean it's true of course; just my perception of it all.

> together *quality* technical books is very difficult and O'Reilly has
> done an admirable job of handling this.
> 
> They also, if I recall correctly, have a policy of trying not to
> introduce books which compete with other books thay are currently
> selling.  This is a *strong* incentive for an author to choose
> O'Reilly.  Whether or not that applies in this case is not for me to
> say.
> 
> Cheers,
> Ovid
> 
My curiousity stems from the shy from Catalyst, yet we have things like
the AxKit book (which I own too).
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature
Size: 3178 bytes
Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Url : http://lists.rawmode.org/pipermail/catalyst/attachments/20051208/521a830e/smime.bin