RE: Back to books

["Nick Trout" <ntrout@...>]

> From: owner-lua-l@tecgraf.puc-rio.br 
> [mailto:owner-lua-l@tecgraf.puc-rio.br] On Behalf Of Roberto 
> Ierusalimschy
> Sent: February 7, 2003 2:34 AM
> To: Multiple recipients of list
> Subject: Re: Back to books 
> 
> 
> > My vote would be to make it availeable on the net for free, but
> > encourage donations (PayPal?), [...]
> 
> I like this idea. The problem is how to implement it. Most systems
> (even paypal) actually disencourage donations. Many people do not have
> a PayPal account, and they are not going to open one just to donate a
> small ammount for a free book.

You could always have a nag message appear in print :o)


> > If you make your book freely available, I promise to buy a copy :-).
> 
> Before that I will have to find a publisher that accepts the 
> book *and*
> a copyleft licence. It is one think for a publisher to accept 
> a copyleft
> licence for a book about a hype topic from a famous author. Lua and
> myself are not such a big hit.

What about looking at Zope for some pointers? I tried using this
complicated beast a couple of years ago and wished there was a book.
There now seem to be several, including copyleft ones e.g.:

online and in print: 
http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/current/index_html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735711372/ref=ase_zopeorg-20/103
-6186518-3840635


Perhaps you could scratch around there, or maybe email the authors to
find out how popular their efforts are and if they made it into print?
I'm sure they wouldn't mind answering any queries. It might also be
useful to know how they managed versions of the book as Zope matured -
as Lua will.

Regards,
Nick

P.S. Thanks for your answers wrt Lua4 vs Lua5. I'm a little out of the
Lua loop now, since I have more responsibility other than scripting and
tools now (and I moved country!). I too have been waiting for tolua5
until I take the plunge to Lua5. I don't know how long I've been
following Lua but Lua5 seems to have received the most amount of
discussion and effort. I would very much appreciate a book to help me
catch up again. I can't believe you were going to pass it off as a minor
version! :) And with incremental GC in 5.1 there'll be nothing left to
complain about soon ;)