preview version of TheBeerHouse MVC on CodePlex

Avraham Nahir · January 30th, 2009, 06:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jminatel

If we were to be able to sell each unpublished chapter through the Wrox Chapters on Demand program (chapters typically sell for $4.99 each),

Do you think you'd be looking to buy just a few chapters to quickly get up to speed or most of the chapters?

Most of the chapters. Couldn't, however, find a TOC ...

Would your expectation buying these early versions of the chapters be that you'd get the final chapters too as part of the purchase price? The early chapters would have been edited and revised by the authors and are laid out, but wouldn't be through final proofreading

I would like to get the final version of the chapters, but this is not a show stopper. Assuming the code at codeplex compiles and runs, I see the chapters mainly as documentation for the code.

B.T.W, speaking of codeplex, shouldn't there have been a January version update?

B.T.W 2 - I should somehow change this Avraham to Avi ;-)

jminatel · January 30th, 2009, 11:18 AM

Danny and Avi: Thanks for the input. I'm hoping we can start selling chapters by the end of the February. I'll get a TOC posted sooner than that.

What I'm going to look at when I make the whole book versus chapters decision is: how long will it take us to get the whole book paid out? If we have a few chapters at a time over several weeks since you are anxious to get these, we may try piecing them up a few at a time. If the whole book comes in from layout within a few days or a week, I might try another scheme where we bundle the whole book.

I'll keep you posted.

dannyc · January 31st, 2009, 12:11 AM

Jim,

I need a book which builds an entire working MVC app which I think
The BeerHouse does.Once you have all the individual pieces then you can research and understand how they all fit together.

Publishing a TOC asap sounds good. Why because another publisher
listed their MVC TOC and it was not the book I was looking for. Perhaps later on it would make sense.

Keep me in the loop.

Thanks

Avraham Nahir · January 31st, 2009, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jminatel

What I'm going to look at when I make the whole book versus chapters decision is: how long will it take us to get the whole book paid out? them up a few at a time. If the whole book comes in from layout within a few days or

I don't understand your point. What's the issue? One alternative is to publish the chapters as they are ready (I hope today - why wait?) and charge a few buck each, where everybody understands this is a "beta" release: I'm willing to accept imperfaction and provide feedback here in the forums, in return to getting an early peek.
What's the other option?

jminatel · January 31st, 2009, 01:30 PM

Danny and Avi: Here's the chapter table of contents. It's in the process of being added to the book's site on Wiley.com and wrox.com but this will save waiting:

Chapter 1 – Introducing the Project: TheBeerHouse

Chapter 2 – Introduction to Model View Controller (MVC)

Chapter 3 – Developing the Site Design

Chapter 4 – Planning an Architecture

Chapter 5 – Membership and User Profiling

Chapter 6 – News, Article, and Blog Management

Chapter 7 – Opinion Polls

Chapter 8 – Newsletters

Chapter 9 – Forums

Chapter 10 – E-Commerce Store

Chapter 11 – Localizing the Site

Chapter 12 – Deploying the Site

jminatel · January 31st, 2009, 01:43 PM

Avi: Our process for selling invididual chapters has a lot of steps. I submitted the information yesterday to get this rolling but it typically takes 2-3 weeks from the time I start the process for a book until the chapters appear as salable on the site. That's the time it takes to assign a preliminary sku, convert that to a real sku (the replacement for an ISBN), tag each chapter in production with a cover page and the sku, check the files to be sure they are the right file, upload them, change all the status codes to make them available, and finally wait for the CMA to process the status updates.
While each of these steps is semi-automated or better, the people triggering each step might have 2-3 days of work to get through before they get to my batch. so, 2-3 weeks until the 2 chapters that are laid out now could be sold. When I get to that stage, hopefully we'll have more chapters laid out and ready to sell and for those, we'll already have some of the preliminary steps done and hopefully get them to the site faster.

Avraham Nahir · January 31st, 2009, 01:52 PM

Yes, it's always lots of work to make things happen.

Thanks!

dannyc · January 31st, 2009, 04:35 PM

JIm,

Thanks for the quick turnaround on posting the Table of Contents. Based on what
I see, it appears the authors guide the reader through the entire MVC development process. The sample code on CodePlex does NOT reflect the
latest RC 1.0 as announced by Scott Guthrie earlier this week.
If you intend to release the chapters / code piecemeal it is assumed the code
samples contained therein would work. By the way, who is testing the code your
team or the authors team ?

Now if you want Avi and myself to test the sample code , I'd be open to that.
I can't believe only Avi and myself are asking for the early chapters.

Avraham Nahir · February 1st, 2009, 04:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dannyc

JIm,

I can't believe only Avi and myself are asking for the early chapters.

1. Possibly not too many readers look here at the forums?
2. Reaction to MS killing linq-to-sql (developers not wanting to rush to new technologies)?

jminatel · February 1st, 2009, 01:00 PM

DannyC: Right, the code sample does not reflect the ASP.NET MVC 1.0 RC which was posted January 26. My best estimate is that Nicholas and Al have about 4-6 weeks of work to do to check and update the code sample and the chapters for the RC. I'll see if Nicholas has a better estimate of how long it will take.

As for how many people ask for a preview version of the chapters: you guys are bleeding edge, pat yourselves on the back for being so far out in front. It's a pretty small crowd who wants to really dig in and learn at the RC stage.