Wednesday, March 14, 2012

FAQ

I keep receiving the same questions over and over, so I decided to publish the official answers here (but I tend to reply to individual messages anyway, when feasible).

Q: How do I tell if I have the first revision or the second?
A: In the first page, you can see the list of revisions (the last is the current)



First revision: 2011-05-15 
Second revision: 2012-02-07

Q: Is the second revision on sale?
A: YES, and it should be on sale everywhere; the book is printed on demand.

Q: What are the differences between rev.1 and rev.2?
A: Mostly cosmetic: I changed some styles in the template, fixed all the typos and all the problems that are mentioned in this site, added an index and added a couple of paragraphs. The differences are not enough to call it "second edition", that's why I prefer the name "rev.2".

Q: Your fixes didn't involve C++11. In rev.2 you still say: "the next standard", etc.
A: Yes, this is a book published in early 2011, and a revision does not change this fact. rev.2 is "how the book should have been since the beginning", not "how the book would be today".

Q: But you don't mention variadic templates...
A: Yes, it's correct and on purpose. I believe C++0x is not something that you can just mention, and the focus of the book is on C++03.

Q: If I send you a photo, can I have a pdf?
A: Generally not. I published a similar offer, stating very clearly that it was valid for about one week. The idea was to give a cheap upgrade to rev.2 to all the people who bought rev.1 just before rev.2 was on sale. If you think this general principle holds true in your case (so: you have the paper book rev.1, and you bought approximately late February 2012), write me anyway and we can discuss.

Q: Is there any other way to get a pdf?
A: YES. As promised in the book, if you find a (new) typo and you explicitly ask for it, I'll send you the pdf.

5 comments:

  1. Hello,

    Is it possible to buy your book as pdf? I would like to read it on Kindle.

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  2. Unfortunately not yet. I considered converting to .epub, but the result is a disaster.
    The source code does not play well with variable-size fonts.
    I was considering Apple iBooks Author to publish a pdf for the iPad, this was on my to-do list but initially there were licensing issues and I didn't investigate further.
    However, suggestions are welcome.

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  3. I would love to have this as a PDF or something. I'm kind of a typography snob and I'd love to see it formatted nicely via XeTeX or something. You might want to look into using pandoc for conversion.http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ But I don't think there is a silver bullet. I'm going to go ahead and buy it now regardless. If a nice PDF comes out (ligatures, kerning, assorted prettiness) that'd be cool too.

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  4. Thanks for the link, I will try it for sure, but - let me tell you - I'm not going to invest time fixing the result: if a nice pdf comes out, as you say, you will know.

    I gave up being a "typography snob" when I realized how simpler is the alternative :)
    Writing a book is a project that spans several years: you have to plan carefully your tools, and consider from day one additional factors, like ease of maintenance and version control.
    I consider a WYSIWYG editor as the first basic requirement: I want to focus on content, and continuously switching between source code and rendered preview is too distracting; unfortunately SWP (which I consider the best tex editor available) is windows-only, and I often needed to work on a Mac.
    Definitely, MS Word was the product I was looking for, and I'm totally satisfied; I may agree that rendering quality could be better, but it's not bad anyway, and for people who are used to look at the essential, it shouldn't be a problem (you edit source code in VI, don't you? ;)

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    Replies
    1. Very true. Not to mention MS Word has some really good typeface support in 2010: http://www.orzeszek.org/blog/2009/05/17/how-to-enable-opentype-ligatures-in-word-2010/

      Also, what's the point of getting a nice layout if you have to recompile it when you make a major change. I've never used SWP, but I was using TeXshop on mac for my thesis. Typography is one of those things that cascades into more and more trouble the more you look into it. I'm excited to read it regardless of the layout. Should be here Tuesday.

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