Re: postgresql book - practical or something newer?

Hey everybody. I was just informed that our organization has a credit at
amazon.com and asked if I had any books I wanted. I've been thinking
about getting a postgresql book, and from what I've seen and read
Practical PostgreSQL seems to be the standard (as well as co-authored by
Joshua Drake, somebody that has helped me many times on this very list)
but the fact that it's based on 7.x worries me. I started using
postgresql with 8.x on windows and I'm wondering if this book and it's
teachings will help me or if I should look at something targeted at 8.x
or windows. What do you guys think?

--
Tom Hart
IT Specialist
Cooperative Federal
723 Westcott St.
Syracuse, NY 13210
(315) 471-1116 ext. 202
(315) 476-0567 (fax)

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On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:53:25 -0500
Tom Hart <tomhart(at)coopfed(dot)org> wrote:

> Hey everybody. I was just informed that our organization has a credit
> at amazon.com and asked if I had any books I wanted. I've been
> thinking about getting a postgresql book, and from what I've seen and
> read Practical PostgreSQL seems to be the standard (as well as
> co-authored by Joshua Drake, somebody that has helped me many times
> on this very list) but the fact that it's based on 7.x worries me. I
> started using postgresql with 8.x on windows and I'm wondering if
> this book and it's teachings will help me or if I should look at
> something targeted at 8.x or windows. What do you guys think?

Pratical PostgreSQL is still a good reference but you can use the free
web version as a reference. It lacks a lot of information that
is very useful (ex, the books has zero idea of pg_stat_*). The Korry
Douglas book is still reasonably relevant (as it covers 8) and is also
a good book.

I find that the best way to get what you need, is to read the fine
manual from postgresql. Yes, its massive, unwieldy and in a lot of
ways counter-intuitive (to a newbie) but if you have the terminology
down you aren't going to find a more comprehensive text.

Plus, when you find things that don't quite make sense you can submit
a doc patch to make the docs that much better.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

- --
The PostgreSQL Company: Since 1997, http://www.commandprompt.com/
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

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Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:53:25 -0500
> Tom Hart <tomhart(at)coopfed(dot)org> wrote:
>
>
>> Hey everybody. I was just informed that our organization has a credit
>> at amazon.com and asked if I had any books I wanted. I've been
>> thinking about getting a postgresql book, and from what I've seen and
>> read Practical PostgreSQL seems to be the standard (as well as
>> co-authored by Joshua Drake, somebody that has helped me many times
>> on this very list) but the fact that it's based on 7.x worries me. I
>> started using postgresql with 8.x on windows and I'm wondering if
>> this book and it's teachings will help me or if I should look at
>> something targeted at 8.x or windows. What do you guys think?
>>
>
> Pratical PostgreSQL is still a good reference but you can use the free
> web version as a reference. It lacks a lot of information that
> is very useful (ex, the books has zero idea of pg_stat_*). The Korry
> Douglas book is still reasonably relevant (as it covers 8) and is also
> a good book.
>
> I find that the best way to get what you need, is to read the fine
> manual from postgresql. Yes, its massive, unwieldy and in a lot of
> ways counter-intuitive (to a newbie) but if you have the terminology
> down you aren't going to find a more comprehensive text.
>
> Plus, when you find things that don't quite make sense you can submit
> a doc patch to make the docs that much better.
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> Joshua D. Drake
>
>
>
> - --
> The PostgreSQL Company: Since 1997, http://www.commandprompt.com/
> Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
> Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
> PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit
>
I've checked out the docs online, and they've helped me a great deal.
I've also read excerpts from the free online version of practical. I'll
stick with my current strategy of online docs/mailing list for now.

BTW, thanks for not completely plugging your book. Have you guys
considered authoring another on 8.x?

--
Tom Hart
IT Specialist
Cooperative Federal
723 Westcott St.
Syracuse, NY 13210
(315) 471-1116 ext. 202
(315) 476-0567 (fax)

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On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 13:03:29 -0500
Tom Hart <tomhart(at)coopfed(dot)org> wrote:

> I've checked out the docs online, and they've helped me a great deal.
> I've also read excerpts from the free online version of practical.
> I'll stick with my current strategy of online docs/mailing list for
> now.
>
> BTW, thanks for not completely plugging your book. Have you guys
> considered authoring another on 8.x?

I try to be reasonable (no laughing people :)). It's on the list, just
like everything else. I doubt I would ever publish through a
traditional house those. Something more along the lines of Lulu where
the book can give the most use to the community.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

- --
The PostgreSQL Company: Since 1997, http://www.commandprompt.com/
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit

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On Jan 29, 2008 6:16 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:

> I try to be reasonable (no laughing people :)).

Oh it's hard, so very, very hard!

:-)

/D

On Tue, 2008-01-29 at 19:16 +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> On Jan 29, 2008 6:16 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
>
> > I try to be reasonable (no laughing people :)).
>
> Oh it's hard, so very, very hard!
>

But seriously, I've ranted on this some time ago( and you can tell that
I'm about to start again)

<rant>
One of the worst aspect of PG is the documentation, or the lack of it in
terms of "traditional" house. The Manual is fine and all, but in most
cases, what I find that it lacks is actually examples. Either examples
to show what it a particular field/query means but also as a way to show
exactly how a particular problem can be solved.

When I played with both MSSQL and MySQL, I had loads of books (and I
bought a bit of it too, didn't bother subscribing to safari, it just
ain't a book!) to be used as reference and what not.

In PG, all there is, is the manual, a book by Robert Treat, the Book
from Joshua, 1 or 2 other books authored by someone I can't remember etc
and that's about it.

Then I would have to go hunt(via google) for any bit of blog/
presentation slides from a meetup/talk etc for ways to find out how to
do a particular thing. (Thanks Bruce M, Thanks Robert T - excellent
partitioning talk!, Thanks PgCon!) and pore over those.

Other than that, it's more or less, "Bang you head here" and "send email
to the list and hope someone answers"

I hang on to my O'reilly "SQL Hacks" book tightly as it gives me
examples on how to solve a problem and even how other DBs solve it.

I wish there was a book like MySQL Cookbook (which I have a copy)
</rant>

"Ow Mun Heng" <Ow(dot)Mun(dot)Heng(at)wdc(dot)com> writes:

> <rant>
> One of the worst aspect of PG is the documentation, or the lack of it in
> terms of "traditional" house. The Manual is fine and all, but in most
> cases, what I find that it lacks is actually examples. Either examples
> to show what it a particular field/query means but also as a way to show
> exactly how a particular problem can be solved.

I always thought one of the best things about the manual was that it has tons
of examples. Arguably too many examples for a reference manual but personally
I find it easier to learn from examples than reference text anyways so I
appreciate it.

> When I played with both MSSQL and MySQL, I had loads of books (and I
> bought a bit of it too, didn't bother subscribing to safari, it just
> ain't a book!) to be used as reference and what not.
>
> In PG, all there is, is the manual, a book by Robert Treat, the Book
> from Joshua, 1 or 2 other books authored by someone I can't remember etc
> and that's about it.

Actually there are several other books, but they're mostly out of date. This
is the biggest source of the problem you're complaining about I think. Most of
the features you're looking for documentation for will be from the last 2-3
years and it takes about that long for books to get into print.

In fact I think most of the features you'll look for examples of will be from
the last 1-2 years. When 8.3 comes out people will be looking for whole books
on XML functionality, tsearch implementations, etc, and there will be nothing
aside from the manual since they're all brand new features.

--
Gregory Stark
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com
Ask me about EnterpriseDB's On-Demand Production Tuning

On 30/01/2008 11:27, Gregory Stark wrote:

> In fact I think most of the features you'll look for examples of will be from
> the last 1-2 years. When 8.3 comes out people will be looking for whole books
> on XML functionality, tsearch implementations, etc, and there will be nothing
> aside from the manual since they're all brand new features.

Isn't this the idea of the interactive online docs? People can add stuff
they find useful for others. The PHP docs have tons of extra snippets
added by users - some dross, granted, but there's a lot of good stuff
there too.

Ray.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Raymond O'Donnell, Director of Music, Galway Cathedral, Ireland
rod(at)iol(dot)ie
---------------------------------------------------------------

On Wed, 2008-01-30 at 15:54 +0800, Ow Mun Heng wrote:
> <rant>
> One of the worst aspect of PG is the documentation, or the lack of it in
> terms of "traditional" house. The Manual is fine and all, but in most
> cases, what I find that it lacks is actually examples. Either examples
> to show what it a particular field/query means but also as a way to show
> exactly how a particular problem can be solved.

With respect, I have to disagree here. The strength of PG's
documentation is, in fact, one of the key reasons I switched my company
completely off a commercial RDBMS and onto PostgreSQL. In my opinion,
PostgreSQL has, hands-down, the best documentation of any FOSS package
I've used, and it's better than much commercial documentation too. The
development group seems to be be uncompromising in its dedication to
keeping the documentation up-to-date, accurate, and thorough.

You should see what some of these commercial vendors try to pass off as
documentation! It's awful.

I don't disagree with your point that it's not robust with examples of
"exactly how a particular problem can be solved". But I think there are
enough, and more importantly, I don't think problem-solving is an
important focus for a manual (that's why 3rd party books exist). The
manual needs to be *the* reference document so that end users don't need
to read source code in order to understand how the system works.
Example-oriented documentation has a tendency to skimp on the reference
material and leave big gaping holes, in my experience. I like the
reference focus of the existing PostgreSQL manual very much.

--
Jason Topaz
topaz(at)panix(dot)com

On Jan 30, 2008 11:35 AM, Raymond O'Donnell <rod(at)iol(dot)ie> wrote:
> On 30/01/2008 11:27, Gregory Stark wrote:
>
> > In fact I think most of the features you'll look for examples of will be from
> > the last 1-2 years. When 8.3 comes out people will be looking for whole books
> > on XML functionality, tsearch implementations, etc, and there will be nothing
> > aside from the manual since they're all brand new features.
>
> Isn't this the idea of the interactive online docs? People can add stuff
> they find useful for others. The PHP docs have tons of extra snippets
> added by users - some dross, granted, but there's a lot of good stuff
> there too.

It most certainly is, please, add away! The comments are moderated, so
hopefully there's not too much dross in ours!

/D

On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:27:20 +0000
Gregory Stark <stark(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> wrote:

> "Ow Mun Heng" <Ow(dot)Mun(dot)Heng(at)wdc(dot)com> writes:
>
> > <rant>
> > One of the worst aspect of PG is the documentation, or the lack
> > of it in terms of "traditional" house. The Manual is fine and
> > all, but in most cases, what I find that it lacks is actually
> > examples. Either examples to show what it a particular
> > field/query means but also as a way to show exactly how a
> > particular problem can be solved.
>
> I always thought one of the best things about the manual was that
> it has tons of examples. Arguably too many examples for a reference
> manual but personally I find it easier to learn from examples than
> reference text anyways so I appreciate it.

Evil is in the details. Some examples don't really show off the power
of postgresql.
Sometimes you look at an example, you know other related stuff and
say... mmm I know I can push this further but how?

How/where is it possible to submit doc patches? Even for older
versions?
There were things I didn't find so easy to understand/guess in the
manual, no rocket science, I took note of them or I just found
external pages that actually explained how to do that and I think
their place should actually be in the manual.

BTW examples are a sort of specification too. I wouldn't
underestimate their more formal value. So I think they should be part
of *the* reference documentation with example output as well.
They shouldn't be of the kind "how-to" but of the kind "you can't
push the syntax further and this is what you'd expect as an output".
Many things are already there in the "VI Reference section" but some
are not, especially in the "V Server programming" part.

--
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo
http://www.webthatworks.it

On 30/01/2008 12:12, Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:

> Many things are already there in the "VI Reference section" but some
> are not, especially in the "V Server programming" part.

+1

The Server Programming section is where we really need lots of examples.

Ray.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Raymond O'Donnell, Director of Music, Galway Cathedral, Ireland
rod(at)iol(dot)ie
---------------------------------------------------------------

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Tom Hart <tomhart(at)coopfed(dot)org> wrote:
[...]
> I find that the best way to get what you need, is to read the fine
> manual from postgresql. Yes, its massive, unwieldy and in a lot of
> ways counter-intuitive (to a newbie) but if you have the terminology
> down you aren't going to find a more comprehensive text.
>
I find the manual answers just about everything I've needed to answer.
Personally though I find
the on-line version somewhat slow/cumbersome to find what I'm looking for.

Using Windows as my desktop machine (servers running Linux) I found the
most accessible form
of the manual was that distributed with pgAdminIII. Until recently they
shipped a fully
searchable Windows Help version of the latest manual which was fantastic.

Unfortunately pgAdmin has now removed that section of the manual and
simply links to the
Postgres web-site. I can understand it was some work to put it in each
time - but it was
very useful. So much so when I get a chance I intend to find an older
copy of pgAdmin and
install just the manual from it.

Has anyone else generated a Windows Help version of the manual?

Is there a source version of the files used to generate it (pgAdmin
people?)? I'd be interested in
the amount of work needed to create the file - if not excessive I might
volunteer to get it done
again if people other than me might find it useful.

Pete
> Plus, when you find things that don't quite make sense you can submit
> a doc patch to make the docs that much better.
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> Joshua D. Drake
>
>
>
> - --
> The PostgreSQL Company: Since 1997, http://www.commandprompt.com/
> Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
> Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
> PostgreSQL SPI Liaison | SPI Director | PostgreSQL political pundit
>
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--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Wilson
T: 01707 891840
M: 07796 656566
http://www.yellowhawk.co.uk The information in this email is
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On Jan 30, 2008 12:45 PM, Peter Wilson <petew(at)yellowhawk(dot)co(dot)uk> wrote:

> Has anyone else generated a Windows Help version of the manual?

We distribute it with PostgreSQL - it's just not integrated with the
pgAdmin help any more. You can even tell pgAdmin to use that if you
don''t wish to use the online help.

Regards, Dave.

Am Mittwoch, 30. Januar 2008 schrieb Raymond O'Donnell:
> Isn't this the idea of the interactive online docs? People can add stuff
> they find useful for others.

Well, not really, for better or worse. Each release, we take the comments and
either fold them into the main documentation or delete them. So
the "interactive" feature is more of an easier way to submit additions or
corrections; it is not meant to add a user-edited extra dimension to the
documentation material.

The well-hidden techdocs section of the web site is supposed to allow users to
submit tips, articles, and the like, but I'm not sure how accessible that is.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

Am Mittwoch, 30. Januar 2008 schrieb Ivan Sergio Borgonovo:
> How/where is it possible to submit doc patches?

pgsql-docs(at)postgresql(dot)org -- The process is mostly the same as for normal
code. The Developer section of the web site gives you more information.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

Am Mittwoch, 30. Januar 2008 schrieb Peter Wilson:
> Has anyone else generated a Windows Help version of the manual?

It can be built from the source code using the "make htmlhelp" target in
doc/src/sgml/. I don't know how to get from there to the final format,
though. I understand it is proprietary.

--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

Dave Page wrote:
> On Jan 30, 2008 12:45 PM, Peter Wilson <petew(at)yellowhawk(dot)co(dot)uk> wrote:
>
>
>> Has anyone else generated a Windows Help version of the manual?
>>
>
> We distribute it with PostgreSQL - it's just not integrated with the
> pgAdmin help any more. You can even tell pgAdmin to use that if you
> don''t wish to use the online help.
>
Hi Dave,
good to know it still exists.

Is it only distributed with the Window distribution?

I only run Postgres on Linux boxes, but use a Windows desktop machine.

Is there a place where I can just download the .chm file without having
to install Postgres on Windows?

All the best
Pete
> Regards, Dave.
>
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>
>

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T: 01707 891840
M: 07796 656566
http://www.yellowhawk.co.uk The information in this email is
confidential and is intended for the addressee/s only. Access to this
email by anyone else is unauthorised. If you are not the intended
recipient, you must not read, use or disseminate the information
contained in or attached to this email.

On Jan 30, 2008 1:34 PM, Peter Wilson <petew(at)yellowhawk(dot)co(dot)uk> wrote:
>
> Dave Page wrote:
>
> On Jan 30, 2008 12:45 PM, Peter Wilson <petew(at)yellowhawk(dot)co(dot)uk> wrote:
>
>
>
> Has anyone else generated a Windows Help version of the manual?
>
> We distribute it with PostgreSQL - it's just not integrated with the
> pgAdmin help any more. You can even tell pgAdmin to use that if you
> don''t wish to use the online help.
>
> Hi Dave,
> good to know it still exists.
>
> Is it only distributed with the Window distribution?

Yes, at present. I guess it's something we could add to the website though.

/D

Dave Page wrote:
> On Jan 30, 2008 1:34 PM, Peter Wilson <petew(at)yellowhawk(dot)co(dot)uk> wrote:
>
>> Dave Page wrote:
>>
>> On Jan 30, 2008 12:45 PM, Peter Wilson <petew(at)yellowhawk(dot)co(dot)uk> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Has anyone else generated a Windows Help version of the manual?
>>
>>
>> Is it only distributed with the Window distribution?
>>
>
> Yes, at present. I guess it's something we could add to the website though.
>
> /D
>
That would get my vote - maybe as an extra column on the following page
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/manuals/

Pete
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
>
>

On Wed, 2008-01-30 at 20:47 +0900, Jason Topaz wrote:

> I don't disagree with your point that it's not robust with examples of
> "exactly how a particular problem can be solved". But I think there are
> enough, and more importantly, I don't think problem-solving is an
> important focus for a manual (that's why 3rd party books exist).

Which is also the cause of the original rant. There is very few 3rd
party books.

On Wednesday 30 January 2008 02:54, Ow Mun Heng wrote:
> On Tue, 2008-01-29 at 19:16 +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> > On Jan 29, 2008 6:16 PM, Joshua D. Drake <jd(at)commandprompt(dot)com> wrote:
> > > I try to be reasonable (no laughing people :)).
> >
> > Oh it's hard, so very, very hard!
>
> But seriously, I've ranted on this some time ago( and you can tell that
> I'm about to start again)
>
> <rant>
> One of the worst aspect of PG is the documentation, or the lack of it in
> terms of "traditional" house. The Manual is fine and all, but in most
> cases, what I find that it lacks is actually examples. Either examples
> to show what it a particular field/query means but also as a way to show
> exactly how a particular problem can be solved.
>
> When I played with both MSSQL and MySQL, I had loads of books (and I
> bought a bit of it too, didn't bother subscribing to safari, it just
> ain't a book!) to be used as reference and what not.
>
> In PG, all there is, is the manual, a book by Robert Treat, the Book
> from Joshua, 1 or 2 other books authored by someone I can't remember etc
> and that's about it.
>
> Then I would have to go hunt(via google) for any bit of blog/
> presentation slides from a meetup/talk etc for ways to find out how to
> do a particular thing. (Thanks Bruce M, Thanks Robert T - excellent
> partitioning talk!, Thanks PgCon!) and pore over those.
>
> Other than that, it's more or less, "Bang you head here" and "send email
> to the list and hope someone answers"
>
> I hang on to my O'reilly "SQL Hacks" book tightly as it gives me
> examples on how to solve a problem and even how other DBs solve it.
>
> I wish there was a book like MySQL Cookbook (which I have a copy)
> </rant>

Just so you know, I approached OReally about writing a PostgreSQL Cookbook,
and they turned it down. They did offer me some other titles, but those don't
seem to have gone anywhere.

I have thought of going the self-publishing route, but the reason against it
is the same one as you don't see a lot of book publishers working on PG
books; the sales just aren't that strong.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Robert Treat wrote:

> Just so you know, I approached OReally about writing a PostgreSQL Cookbook,
> and they turned it down. They did offer me some other titles, but those don't
> seem to have gone anywhere.

As someone else pointed out in this thread, very much of what you need
to know has been previously discussed at one point; the hard part is
finding it.

What we need is for some of the people with the big brains ;) to come up
with some new kind of "hyperbook". That would be the documentation in
some form similar to what it is today, but somehow connected to the
discussions that happen in the mailing lists. That way, when something
really insightful or helpful gets said in the mailing lists, it can get
connected to a particular place in the documentation. Then over time,
the doc maintainers can take the best of those and incorporate them
directly into the docs at the appropriate place.

This would not only benefit those looking for information, but also
those hearty and knowledgeable souls (like Tom) who patiently provide it
repeatedly as the same questions pop up every couple weeks/months.
Plus, the documentation would grow and become much more useful over
time. Then, instead of repeating answers to repeating questions, we can
just point to the appropriate place in the docs. The "unattached"
discussions could identify sections lacking in the docs; i.e., if enough
unattached discussions accumulate for a particular topic, then that
probably indicates the need for a new section in the docs on that topic.

To be honest, I think a hyperbook would be easier to implement with
forums than with mailing lists. The former are permanently resident in
a known place, while the latter are out there in the ether (or in some
unorganized archive that is notoriously hard to link to.)

--
Guy Rouillier

On Thu, 31 Jan 2008, Robert Treat wrote:

> Just so you know, I approached OReally about writing a PostgreSQL Cookbook,
> and they turned it down. They did offer me some other titles, but those don't
> seem to have gone anywhere.

I think the market for a PostgreSQL book is limited by a few things:

1) There just aren't that many potential buyers (yet!)
2) The included documentation is too good
3) There's way too much community-generated material like the mailing
lists available
4) Multiple earlier free books are already floating around

You almost have to go out of your way to cover material that isn't in the
manual to get something that's worth buying in book form, but then it's
hard to find a market for that--so much of the popular material is already
in there.

> I have thought of going the self-publishing route, but the reason against it
> is the same one as you don't see a lot of book publishers working on PG
> books; the sales just aren't that strong.

For publishing a book to make sense, you have to get more in sales than
the author could have made doing other work rather than working on the
book. That's still tough for anyone qualified to write about PostgreSQL.

I think there's enormous potential for an online book that referenced the
existing manual heavily, serving more as an tutorial index to help guide
people through that document. "Potential" from the perspective of being
useful, not so much as a way for the author to get much out of spending
that time.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith(at)gregsmith(dot)com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD

On Jan 31, 2008 4:40 PM, Guy Rouillier <guyr-ml1(at)burntmail(dot)com> wrote:
> Robert Treat wrote:
>
> > Just so you know, I approached OReally about writing a PostgreSQL Cookbook,
> > and they turned it down. They did offer me some other titles, but those don't
> > seem to have gone anywhere.
>
> As someone else pointed out in this thread, very much of what you need
> to know has been previously discussed at one point; the hard part is
> finding it.
>
> What we need is for some of the people with the big brains ;) to come up
> with some new kind of "hyperbook". That would be the documentation in
> some form similar to what it is today, but somehow connected to the
> discussions that happen in the mailing lists. That way, when something
> really insightful or helpful gets said in the mailing lists, it can get
> connected to a particular place in the documentation. Then over time,
> the doc maintainers can take the best of those and incorporate them
> directly into the docs at the appropriate place.

The trouble is that this is nearly as much trouble as actually writing
a book, and doesn't provide a clear incentive for people to put in the
effort of making it happen.

There's the problem (and it is, to a degree, truly a problem) that the
"postgreSQL book" market hasn't been lucrative enough to draw people
into writing books. And honestly, it *needs* to be more lucrative.
If I'm thinking about alternative uses for my spare time, writing does
not appear to be a particularly profitable use.

Finding a "poor man's way" to generate a "hyperbook" actually needs
much the same sorts of skills and efforts, even though it probably
provides those that provide the effort with *less* benefits.
--
http://linuxfinances.info/info/linuxdistributions.html
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and
expecting different results." -- assortedly attributed to Albert
Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Rita Mae Brown, and Rudyard Kipling

Christopher Browne wrote:
> On Jan 31, 2008 4:40 PM, Guy Rouillier <guyr-ml1(at)burntmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
>> Robert Treat wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Just so you know, I approached OReally about writing a PostgreSQL Cookbook,
>>> and they turned it down. They did offer me some other titles, but those don't
>>> seem to have gone anywhere.
>>>
>> As someone else pointed out in this thread, very much of what you need
>> to know has been previously discussed at one point; the hard part is
>> finding it.
>>
>> What we need is for some of the people with the big brains ;) to come up
>> with some new kind of "hyperbook". That would be the documentation in
>> some form similar to what it is today, but somehow connected to the
>> discussions that happen in the mailing lists. That way, when something
>> really insightful or helpful gets said in the mailing lists, it can get
>> connected to a particular place in the documentation. Then over time,
>> the doc maintainers can take the best of those and incorporate them
>> directly into the docs at the appropriate place.
>>
>
> The trouble is that this is nearly as much trouble as actually writing
> a book, and doesn't provide a clear incentive for people to put in the
> effort of making it happen.
>
> There's the problem (and it is, to a degree, truly a problem) that the
> "postgreSQL book" market hasn't been lucrative enough to draw people
> into writing books. And honestly, it *needs* to be more lucrative.
> If I'm thinking about alternative uses for my spare time, writing does
> not appear to be a particularly profitable use.
>
> Finding a "poor man's way" to generate a "hyperbook" actually needs
> much the same sorts of skills and efforts, even though it probably
> provides those that provide the effort with *less* benefits.
>
Personally I'm surprised that the last couple responses seem to center
around not being able to make much money off of it. I agree that it
would require some time investment, but so did building PG in the first
place. Countless people have already sacrificed hours upon hours of
their time with no return on their investment except pride in their work
and a better overall product for everybody to use. I'm not a talented
enough programmer to contribute to the code, but in this way I can do
something to give back to the pg community.

--
Tom Hart
IT Specialist
Cooperative Federal
723 Westcott St.
Syracuse, NY 13210
(315) 471-1116 ext. 202
(315) 476-0567 (fax)

On Feb 4, 2008 3:31 PM, Tom Hart <tomhart(at)coopfed(dot)org> wrote:
>
> Christopher Browne wrote:
> > On Jan 31, 2008 4:40 PM, Guy Rouillier <guyr-ml1(at)burntmail(dot)com> wrote:
> >
> >> Robert Treat wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Just so you know, I approached OReally about writing a PostgreSQL Cookbook,
> >>> and they turned it down. They did offer me some other titles, but those don't
> >>> seem to have gone anywhere.
> >>>
> >> As someone else pointed out in this thread, very much of what you need
> >> to know has been previously discussed at one point; the hard part is
> >> finding it.
> >>
> >> What we need is for some of the people with the big brains ;) to come up
> >> with some new kind of "hyperbook". That would be the documentation in
> >> some form similar to what it is today, but somehow connected to the
> >> discussions that happen in the mailing lists. That way, when something
> >> really insightful or helpful gets said in the mailing lists, it can get
> >> connected to a particular place in the documentation. Then over time,
> >> the doc maintainers can take the best of those and incorporate them
> >> directly into the docs at the appropriate place.
> >>
> >
> > The trouble is that this is nearly as much trouble as actually writing
> > a book, and doesn't provide a clear incentive for people to put in the
> > effort of making it happen.
> >
> > There's the problem (and it is, to a degree, truly a problem) that the
> > "postgreSQL book" market hasn't been lucrative enough to draw people
> > into writing books. And honestly, it *needs* to be more lucrative.
> > If I'm thinking about alternative uses for my spare time, writing does
> > not appear to be a particularly profitable use.
> >
> > Finding a "poor man's way" to generate a "hyperbook" actually needs
> > much the same sorts of skills and efforts, even though it probably
> > provides those that provide the effort with *less* benefits.
> >
> Personally I'm surprised that the last couple responses seem to center
> around not being able to make much money off of it. I agree that it
> would require some time investment, but so did building PG in the first
> place. Countless people have already sacrificed hours upon hours of
> their time with no return on their investment except pride in their work
> and a better overall product for everybody to use. I'm not a talented
> enough programmer to contribute to the code, but in this way I can do
> something to give back to the pg community.

It's not all purely "charity," and the point was never about trying to
"make as much money as possible" off of it.

And I think the frequency of "no return on their investment" is rather
lower than you do. It is typical for people to add features to free
software systems *that they find useful.* There are quite a number of
people paid to work on PG; the people that pay them *DO* expect a
return on this investment.

There is a deep, fundamental problem with documentation:

- Those people that *UNDERSTAND* things well enough to be able to
write something worth reading need to be about as knowledgeable as the
"deep in the weeds developers."

- It's regarded as being much easier than that.

GOOD documentation (as opposed to "whatever crud we might put up at
some web page") isn't easy to get, and requires a substantial
investment of time and effort.

Given that people have many things competing for their time, I don't
think it's at all strange to expect that this investment lead to some
kind of substantial benefit.
--
http://linuxfinances.info/info/linuxdistributions.html
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and
expecting different results." -- assortedly attributed to Albert
Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Rita Mae Brown, and Rudyard Kipling

On Fri, 1 Feb 2008 20:16:50 -0500 (EST)
Greg Smith <gsmith(at)gregsmith(dot)com> wrote:

> I think the market for a PostgreSQL book is limited by a few things:
>
> 1) There just aren't that many potential buyers (yet!)

As someone who *still* gets royalty checks for his 6 year old book, I
disagree.

> 2) The included documentation is too good

I could buy into this one to a degree.

> 3) There's way too much community-generated material like the mailing
> lists available

Yep.

> 4) Multiple earlier free books are already floating around
>

Bingo! The reality is for the majority of intro topics even the 6 year
old book is more than relevant. Where Practical falls down is talking
about things like background writer or vacuum. Those particular topics
are covered ad-naseum in the docs.

Joshua D. Drake

--
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