[sf-lug] Book bloat (was Re: Byfield's "Verdict" on systemd)

[Akkana Peck]

Rick Moen writes:
> _And_, as users
> from the Pee-Cee market started getting interested in Linux, publishers 
> started upping the page countes of each successive edition, and making
> the books tragically fail by being both bad references and bad
> tutorials.
> 
> 5th edition of Nemeth:  1232 pages
> 4th edition of Nemeth:  1279 pages
> 3rd edition of Nemeth:   896 pages
> 2nd edition of Nemeth:   591 pages

Just to note that there are other reasons for books to get longer.
After you finish a book, everywhere you look, there are things that
make you think "Oh, wow! I should have included a section on that!"

When the time comes to write the next edition, sure, there are a few
sections you didn't like and decide you can leave off to make space
for new material; but if you did any kind of reasonable job on the
previous edition, you have a lot more ideas for nifty new material
than there is old crap you want to drop. So if the publisher doesn't
mind expanding the page count, there's a natural temptation to grow.

(This is the same impulse that causes feature bloat in programs,
of course -- for good or ill.)

It sounds like in the case of this specific book, you're saying the
new material is just publisher-mandated padding, and I'm sure that
happens. Just saying that not all increases in page count are for
publisher-demanded padding; sometimes it's new material the author
thinks is relevant and is dying to write about.

        ...Akkana (Beginning GIMP only went from 506pp in the 1st ed
                   to 539pp in the 2nd, but I was tempted to add
                   quite a bit more)