Re: Book REview

[John McCormick <MCCORMJW@SPLAVA.CC.PLATTSBURGH.EDU>]

>The thing that still has me angry is that at one level it _isn't_ (or
>isn't meant as) a bad review of the "World 3" book.  It's really an
>angry review of the _proofreading_ and _review_ processes.  How come
>such a well planned book by such great authors ended up with a flawed
>result?

In defense of Mike (but NOT of Addison-Wesley) I'd like to say that many
errors are out of the control of the author, editors, and reviewers.

I supplied my publisher with disks containing all the final text and
programs for my CS2 book: _Ada Plus Data Structures: An Object-Based
Approach_, 1996.  The typesetter was unable to read one of my chapter files.
Rather than request another copy from me, they decided to key in the chapter
from the hardcopy.  Needless to say I spent weeks combing the page proofs
correcting all of the errors introduced.  Thank goodness that I was able to
use the page proofs for this chapter in my class so I had many more pairs of
eyes helping with the checking.

It is bad enough to make one think about giving up textbook authoring.

John



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