python a bust?

[Alex Martelli]

Anand Pillai wrote:
   ...
> There was a company called Wrox writing P2P (Programmer 2 Programmer)
> books on many technical topics. I think it got absorbed by Wiley recently.

They had gone bust, and the brand has been purchased.

> Their choice of topics was "Popular" languages and technologies used
> by practicing software developers. I never saw a Python book in their
> stable.
> Of course, again dont start a thread about the technical perfection of
> Wrox books, since I know that their style & content cannot be compared 
> with an O'reilly nutshell book.

You're wrong: some of their books were truly excellent.  Short of Don Box's 
Addison-Wesley bible, they had the best on COM, and the best in particular 
on ATL, the best way to do COM in Visual C++.  Of course, many others
(while still technically OK) were "me too"'s in crowded fields.

> But as again, I am not talking about
> anything regarding
> the "greatness" of the language, but just simple arithmetic.

Simple arithmetic tells us Wrox went bust (despite having some excellent
books and a very vast selection).  I'm not sure how you plan to use this to
convince other publishers to put out plenty of "me too's" technically decent
but mostly undistinguished books in crowded fields.


Alex