The WELL: inkwell.vue.237: Elisabeth and Eric Freeman: Head First Design Patterns

#73: Brian Slesinsky (bslesins) Fri 12 Aug 05 19:52

Fri, 12 Aug 2005 19:52:00 PDT

"Even self-assured design-pattern toting geek girls need feminine hygiene products"

http://fishbowl.pastiche.org/2005/08/12/the_head_first_girls_double_life [Read entire topic]

#72: Elisabeth Freeman (bethfreeman) Fri 25 Feb 05 18:01

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 18:01:00 PST

"What I meant was that in this discussion after about the first dozen posts or so, talk seemed to get away from broad, basic principles of design patterns and get bogged down in how to do this or that in Java (or C#)."

Weird. I don't recall *any* discussion of how to do things in Java or C#. I wonder if there is another thread somewhere that I missed??

#64 of 69 " Since we use In Design, there is no way to extract the data."

"Sure there is! Contact the people at Avatar Data Publishing. Coletta Perry was the president of the QuarkXPress user group before InDesign was launched and now she is the source in the USA for EasyCatalog. ADP has all kinds of solutions. They can make Filemaker Pro sit up and bark like a dog. Just ask them. Extracting data for print publication is what they do!"

Well, all I meant is that there is currently no way for O'Reilly Publishing to extract the data with their current Safari technology. [Read entire topic]

#71: Elisabeth Freeman (bethfreeman) Fri 25 Feb 05 17:59

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:59:00 PST

Thank you Cynthia and John! We really enjoyed all the questions and of course talking about Head First and Design Patterns. I'd like to point everyone to the Creating Passionate Users Blog where we (well, actually mostly Kathy - she's a blogging maniac) blog about Head First principles and related things: http://headrush.typepad.com.

And we'll keep checking back here to see if there's more discussion.

Thank you Well users! [Read entire topic]

#70: Michael E. Marotta (mercury) Fri 25 Feb 05 17:14

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:14:00 PST

#40 of 69: Michael, I'm not sure what you mean. "What I read here seems to be about menu buttons." In what way?

What I meant was that in this discussion after about the first dozen posts or so, talk seemed to get away from broad, basic principles of design patterns and get bogged down in how to do this or that in Java (or C#).

"Is it that you believe that OO principles and Design Patterns do not add anything to the art of programming?"

Not at all! That is why I bought the book. As I said, I was impressed the credentials of Freeman and Freeman and I have not read any kind of software design book in about a decade. OO is just today's FORTRAN, but it _is_ today's standard. So far, I am having a good time with the book.

"Or rather that you think Head First does not add anything to the art of learning?"

That is a much deeper question. I was hoping you would have the answer to that. We are pretty much stuck with books. I write the "Internet Connections" column for the ANA's NUMISMATIST magazine. So, I spend a lot of time reviewing educational websites and looking at CDs and basically, little comes close to books in terms of efficiency. That said, I know as a trainer (robotics and factory automation) that books are limited and limiting as a medium. Nothing competes with hands-on.

That goes for another of my interests, flying. Read all the books you want. Take all the training classes. Nothing replaces being in the cockpit. Yet, there are advantages to books, etc. For one thing you can stop reading a book and think about it. You are not supposed to do that in the cockpit...

So, for the book you wrote, for my having just begun it, I am pretty well satisfied from the viewpoint of a documentation specialist and trainer that your team has done an excellent job of pushing the limits of print by CORRECTLY integrating text and graphics.

(Oh, well... there was one thing... a typo right up front. "Elizabeth lead research and development...")

#64 of 69 " Since we use In Design, there is no way to extract the data."

Sure there is! Contact the people at Avatar Data Publishing. Coletta Perry was the president of the QuarkXPress user group before InDesign was launched and now she is the source in the USA for EasyCatalog. ADP has all kinds of solutions. They can make Filemaker Pro sit up and bark like a dog. Just ask them. Extracting data for print publication is what they do! [Read entire topic]

#69: Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (cdb) Fri 25 Feb 05 13:18

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:18:00 PST

Elisabeth and Eric, it's been such a pleasure having you join us here in Inkwell. Thanks so much for being our guests, and thanks to you, John, for so ably leading this conversation.

Our virtual spotlight has turned to new guest nows, but that doesn't mean you have to stop. This topic will remain open for continued discussion indefinitely, so please feel free to carry on, if you have the time.

Thank you again for being here. [Read entire topic]

#68: Uncle Jax (jax) Fri 25 Feb 05 12:24

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:24:00 PST

>Head First Design Patterns is not on Safari because Safari books are >automatically extracted from XML - assuming the author uses the >standard O'Reilly template. Since we use In Design, there is no way >to extract the data. We'd have to place PDF pages on the site >instead, and no one's gotten around to implementing that yet.

The taxonomy of a publishing industry antipattern! [Read entire topic]

#67: Elisabeth Freeman (bethfreeman) Fri 25 Feb 05 11:47

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 11:47:00 PST

You just had to ask, didn't you? :-)

Most of the time it works really well for us. We've worked together a lot (more than most couples), and so we've had a lot of practice. It's nice to have something big and creative like a book to focus on together (except when it takes over your entire life of course). A book is such an intense effort that it's nice working with someone that you don't get sick of (most of the time) and it's hard to find those people. We knew going into it that we don't get sick of each other, so that was a plus. Also a plus, being able to bounce book ideas off each other while on a trip to the grocery store (minus - when one of us says, "that's a really stupid idea!" :-)

I really enjoyed learning from Eric; as with any working team we both bring different talents to the job, and Eric had previously published a book, and was a better writer than I am. He really helped me to focus on writing clearly and make sure that every sentence, every word - and for Head First, every picture - was really right.

The hardest part of working together, as I'm sure you suspect, is leaving disagreements behind at the work table and not going to bed mad. [Read entire topic]

#66: John Brewer (jbrewer) Fri 25 Feb 05 11:02

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 11:02:00 PST

Perhaps we have time for one last question:

What's it like being married to your writing partner? [Read entire topic]

#65: John Brewer (jbrewer) Thu 24 Feb 05 18:33

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:33:00 PST

Makes sense. A non-paginated version would be very confusing. [Read entire topic]

#64: Elisabeth Freeman (bethfreeman) Thu 24 Feb 05 16:45

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 16:45:00 PST

Head First Design Patterns is not on Safari because Safari books are automatically extracted from XML - assuming the author uses the standard O'Reilly template. Since we use In Design, there is no way to extract the data. We'd have to place PDF pages on the site instead, and no one's gotten around to implementing that yet. [Read entire topic]