[Doc-SIG] RE: [marketing-python] Python book ideas

[Kevin Altis]

> From: Aahz
>
> [Cross-posted to both doc-sig and marketing-python]
>
> Last week I went to the Waterside Conference, which is a conference for
> writers and publishers put on by my agent's company.  I picked up some
> good leads for book ideas, some of which I'm holding to myself for a bit
> while I talk with my agent, but I'd like to throw out one idea that's
> been mentioned before as a joke: _Python for VB6 Programmers_

Actually, I've mentioned it several times to some authors and O'Reilly and I
definitely wasn't joking, though nobody has chosen to pursue the project as
far as I know. The last person I brought this up with was Todd Mezzulo at
O'Reilly.

> According to a presentation I saw, one survey claims that more than 50%
> of VB6 programmers currently refuse to consider upgrading to VB.net.
> That's a huge market for us even if we only get a tiny slice of it.  I'll
> be glad to assist someone else to find a publisher. Any takers?

Regardless of the exact number, there are definitely a lot of VB 6 folks
that feel abandoned. MS has essentially told them to switch to .NET or die.
It probably represents the single largest market segment that is ripe for a
switch to Python, if the right environment is in place so that they can
still leverage a simple to learn and use GUI IDE and that can leverage
existing COM components and build standalones. The GUI IDE part is a bit
rough, but win32all and py2exe take care of the latter.

VBA and VBScript are other good "switch" opportunities. Unlike VB6, you can
convert VBScript code to Python code without having to deal with the GUI
issue. You can already use Python within Windows Script Host (WSH) but even
better you can just avoid using WSH, Python does it better on its own. You
can drive Outlook and write ASP code. Pretty much everything that is in the
"VBScript in a Nutshell" book can be done better with Python.

  http://windows.oreilly.com/

As a bonus, many scripts can be written to work cross-platform which is
something that Windows admins and web developers are starting to think about
more and more.

The first sections of diveintopython make some attempt at reaching the VB
and VBScript user by mentioning the data structures and language elements
they would be familiar with, but it is quite brief.

  http://diveintopython.org/

Some combination of "Python Programming on Win32" and "Learning Python" is
probably the right answer for a "Python for VBA/VBScript Programmers" book.

So, I guess I'm agreeing that there is at least a book or two here with a
potentially huge audience; from hundreds of thousands to the low millions.

ka

> Another idea that I and others have been kicking around for a while is a
> data structures and algorithms book using Python.  Based on what I saw
> at the conference, I think now would be a good time to start working on
> that, possibly beginning it as an Open Source project of some kind.
> --
> Aahz (aahz@pythoncraft.com)           <*>
> http://www.pythoncraft.com/
>
> This is Python.  We don't care much about theory, except where it
> intersects
> with useful practice.  --Aahz, c.l.py, 2/4/2002
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