Re: Book REview

[stt@henning.camb.inmet.com (Tucker Taft)]

Dave (davedave@io.com) wrote:

: Because the Australian market is small, it would be very unwise to risk a
: position in the U.S. market in order to capture a position in the
: Australian market.  (For the benefit of persons such as yourself, perhaps
: I should not have left the following point implied:  By removing the
: "Americanisms"  from the book, they might make it less attractive to the
: U.S. market.)

I don't think anyone is being arrogant ;-).

However, I humbly disagree with the notion that removing "Americanisms"
might hurt the book in the U.S. Market.  If anything, an attention
to international concerns is essential for all of us, especially those
interested in being successful in the software market.  If a text
book helps to raise awareness of issues relating to internationalization
and localization, it would be doing students a great favor.

And as far as being interesting, I suspect many students will find
it more interesting to see examples talking about Rubles or Swiss Francs
or Pesos than always seeing the typical dollars-and-cents examples.

I also don't fault Mike for missing some of these issues, given the
effort involved in creating a text book in the first place.  But
the suggestions relating to removing Americanisms, some of which are
probably unintentional (such as "GPA"), seem worth considering for
future revisions of the text, and would probably enhance the appeal of 
the text, even in the U.S. market.

Just another opinion...

: -- Dave Jones
: davedave@io.com

-Tucker Taft   stt@inmet.com   http://www.inmet.com/~stt/
Intermetrics, Inc.  Cambridge, MA  USA