Bad review day
March 8th, 2006
Nobody likes being criticized, but I suspect writers, along with the acting profession, are probably among the most sensitive. I visit Amazon.com regularly to see how well my books are selling and what readers are saying about them. Foundation PHP 5 for Flash has been out for about a year, has sold quite well, and generally attracted favourable reviews. So I was disheartened (to put it mildly) when I saw an Amazon review by Seattle Biker, which began with the words, “I don’t care for this book.”
Basically, Seattle Biker’s complaint is that the examples are unwieldy, and that by page 370 he still hadn’t learned how to send “Hello world” from Flash to a MySQL database. I have some sympathy for the first criticism. When the book was first conceived, my editor, Steve Rycroft, and I wanted a book that didn’t settle for trivial examples. So I devised full-blown projects for each chapter, each one designed to demonstrate a particular aspect of PHP. After four chapters, I realized the book was in danger of turning into a massive brick. Steve and I discussed the direction the book was taking, and he was adamant that I should stick to the original plan - projects that you can really get your teeth into. Although Steve left friends of ED, his successor Chris Mills agreed that the book was on the right track.
The popularity of Foundation PHP 5 for Flash shows we probably made the right decision. Nevertheless, different people do learn at different paces, so I think that a future edition will probably be a slimmer volume and include some shorter examples. The other change will be my approach to ActionScript. The book was designed to teach experienced ActionScripters to use PHP, but it turns out that quite a few readers want a book that teaches both languages together. Lots to think about for a new edition. I’ve no plan to write one just yet, but it’s definitely on the cards for Flash 9.
By the way, you can see my reply to Seattle Biker in my Amazon author’s blog.
Entry Filed under: Books
7 Comments
1. Anggie Bratadinata | April 21st, 2006 at 9:37 am
Hi David, I just bought your book PHP 5 for Flash last month but I was so busy that I didn’t have time to read it until last week and I’m on Ch.3 now. I’m a Flash designer in Indonesia, who do a few AS coding projects in the last 2 years. I have basic C++ and C# knowledge so I don’t find your book to be difficult to follow. Actually, it is well written. The only thing that hold me from advancing so far is that you didn’t provide a bird-view (or flowchart or DFD) of each application so I must go back and forth to draw it myself. Your clear explanations make it a lot easier. Anyway, your book is one of the best out there. It’s a bit pricey for me, but I think it’s worth it.
2. conspirisi | May 3rd, 2006 at 10:58 am
Hi David,
I’m not going to be to critical cus your helping me out on the forums right now
My opinion for what its worth:
The Idea for the book is great. I was really excited about the book, and still am if I can get through it. Its a natural progression for many clientside developers to eventually move into serverside scripting.
The problem is, I think it incorrectly reads its audience.
1) I don’t believe a purchaser of the book would be a beginner to actionscript as they would not be interested in, or really start off mixing actionscript with php.
2) I do believe however that your audience will be, presumptuous as this is, be like me. Fairly experienced in client-side development - specifically Flash but not have a clue about server side scripting or hooking up to database.
3) This leaves another category - someone with serverside expertise and little clientside dev experience. Perhaps the book is more suited to them, I don’t know i’m not really amongst them.
Noting the above. Superfluous graphics or even too much scripting (not related to communicating with the server) on the flash side is just ignored by readers trying to get a grasp of php working with Flash. For example pgs 66 - 71 deals with putting a flash form together and validation. This whole section could be made more concise and even validation, important as it is, given that its clientside most readers of this book could accomplish. So that said probably best left out or the detailed in an appendix. The mail example is also evidence of misreading the audience, this may seem easy but to many flash developers who only really work clientside is a complete mystery. Judging from the forums this seems to be a sticking point and although you say its not the point of the excersise - its still really frustrating and affects the readers confidence. So that should be left till later in the book.
Hope I haven’t been to critical as it was intended to be constructive. Also I anticipate to get much reward from the rest of the book as you know I’m only on pg 77.
I reckon Moock’s approach is better model but perhaps leaving some of Moock’s attention to detail (exemplified by EAS 2) out.
I must say though your contributions on the forums are hugely refreshing and inspires readers to continue.
I finish with a question, do authors actually use people who don’t know what they are doing i.e.learners, to help them write books?
3. david | May 3rd, 2006 at 11:48 am
Thanks for your comments, conspirisi. Working out what the average reader will want from a book is extremely difficult. If you look at some of the reviews of Foundation PHP 5 for Flash on Amazon, you’ll see that some readers were disappointed that I didn’t concentrate more on ActionScript. So, if I write a new version to please them, I’ll please you even less.
The original concept of the book was to teach PHP to Flash developers. The original version of Foundation PHP for Flash had been very popular, but was hopelessly out of date. Although I hadn’t been involved with the first edition, foED said they wanted me to write it. That meant I had to take a completely fresh approach. The original used HTML forms, but my editor said he wanted me to use Flash forms instead. If I had used HTML forms for the PHP, the book would have been much shorter. On the other hand, a lot of readers seem to use the book to learn as much about ActionScript as PHP. Many of the questions I’m asked have nothing to do with PHP, but are about using version 2 components.
As for validation, I disagree that it could be relegated to an appendix. Validation is extremely important in PHP. The fact that Flash enables you to do it reliably on the client side reduces the amount of PHP scripting required.
Do we get learners help us to write books? Not directly, although Sham Bhangal knew virtually nothing about PHP when he started working on the book as my technical reviewer. So he was a learner in that sense. I regularly monitor online forums to see what sort of problems are being asked about; and I use direct feedback about my books to improve future versions. foED want me to write a new version of Foundation PHP 5 for Flash, but I’m currently up to my eyeballs in a completely different book - all PHP, no Flash.
4. conspirisi | May 3rd, 2006 at 1:40 pm
ok I concede…. grudgingly.
I stick by making the examples (admittedly still on the first one) far more concise though.
5. david | May 3rd, 2006 at 2:34 pm
I agree that shorter examples are needed. But if your definition of concise means cutting out some steps or explanation, we’ll have to agree to differ. The target readership for the Foundation series is the beginner/intermediate level. Even if some steps seem obvious to you, they’re vital for less experienced readers.
6. conspirisi | May 3rd, 2006 at 2:58 pm
no I mean why use 5 form fields when 1 or 2 get the principle across. I’m a big fan of explanation.
7. Andrew | July 14th, 2006 at 3:26 am
David,
I am just learing PHP and have bought the PHP Dreamweaver 8 book. I like it but as a beginner I unfortunately needed help in chapter 3 setting up a server. I am testing remotely and just getting the server setup correct is causing me pain. Do you think you can include a simple screenshot local info, of the remote server settings and the remote testing server for your a sample remote testing config.
Here is an example of my setup…
Local Site:
(all information to a local folder for files and an image folder except:
HTTP address: http://example.com/
Here is my setup:
http://www.example.com
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