Home > Archive > Tcl > October 2005 > I couldn't get a book on Tcl in Waterstone's
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| Author |
I couldn't get a book on Tcl in Waterstone's
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| Mark Hobley 2005-10-15, 6:57 pm |
| Hey !
I wanted to buy a good book on Tcl. I like to have a look before I buy, so
that I can choose which book is best.
I was hoping there would be a book entitled "Tcl/Tk Unleashed", since I tend
to get a lot of "Unleashed" books. However there is no such title on Amazon,
although google does appear to provide some references, but I have not yet
found a supplier.
Not to be deterred, I thought I would go to Birmingham city centre and have a
look at the two big Waterstone book shops to look at what is available.
I could not believe that there was not a single book on Tcl/Tk on the shelves
in either store.
I asked them to do a search on the computer and about 12 titles came up, but
none were in stock.
They used to stock loads of stuff on Tcl/Tk.
I went to Borders, which is another book store in Birmingham, and hey ...
they had just one title "Tcl/Tk in a Nutshell".
Unfortunately, I didn't like this book, so I came home empty handed.
Regards,
Mark.
--
Mark Hobley
393 Quinton Road West
QUINTON
Birmingham
B32 1QE
Telephone: (0121) 247 1596
International: 0044 121 247 1596
Email: markhobley at hotpop dot donottypethisbit com
http://markhobley.yi.org/
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| Pat Thoyts 2005-10-15, 6:57 pm |
| markhobley@hotpop.deletethisbit.com (Mark Hobley) writes:
>I was hoping there would be a book entitled "Tcl/Tk Unleashed", since I tend
>to get a lot of "Unleashed" books. However there is no such title on Amazon,
>although google does appear to provide some references, but I have not yet
>found a supplier.
I bet they had whole shelves of useless dead trees for Java or .NET
though.
--
Pat Thoyts http://www.patthoyts.tk/
To reply, rot13 the return address or read the X-Address header.
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| Mark Hobley 2005-10-15, 6:57 pm |
| Pat Thoyts <cng@mfcyng.serrfreir.pb.hx> wrote:
> markhobley@hotpop.deletethisbit.com (Mark Hobley) writes:
>
> I bet they had whole shelves of useless dead trees for Java or .NET
> though.
>
Yeah, they had entire rows of shelves on these. How crap !
Mark.
--
Mark Hobley
393 Quinton Road West
QUINTON
Birmingham
B32 1QE
Telephone: (0121) 247 1596
International: 0044 121 247 1596
Email: markhobley at hotpop dot donottypethisbit com
http://markhobley.yi.org/
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| Robert 2005-10-15, 6:57 pm |
| You want "Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk" by Welch, Jones, Hobbs.
So far that book and this newsgroup has been all I needed.
Robert
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| William J Giddings 2005-10-15, 6:57 pm |
| Mark
Yes. I know exaclty what you mean. I was in Brum Waterstone's today
-what a rush. All those students stocking up. But, computing -mmm. The
titles have dried up. That's WHSmiths for you. In the past I bought all
my TclTk titles from Waterstones but now there's zilch. A few w s back
on this NG someone was chasing a copy of 'Incr Tcl/Tk from the Ground
Up'. But the cited prices were way above the retail value. In fact, this
was just a few days after I saw a copy at Waterstones. I thought that I
might email the NG with the info and decided to check stocks before
making a post. What do you think had happened? The book was off the
shelf and listed by Waterstones via Amazon at a similarly inflated price.
Regards,
Will
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| Keith Nash 2005-10-16, 9:57 pm |
| > Not to be deterred, I thought I would go to Birmingham city centre and
> have a look at the two big Waterstone book shops to look at what is
> available.
>
> I went to Borders, which is another book store in Birmingham, and hey ...
> they had just one title "Tcl/Tk in a Nutshell".
I've been on exactly the same quest as you in Birmingham city centre.
Borders seems to be best for computer books, and the Waterstones in High
Street seems to have a slightly better range than the one in New Street.
The University bookshop, on the campus at Edgbaston, is open to the public
and might have a better selection of computer books - but it's a while
since I've been there, and I can't remember whether it had any titles on
Tcl. Blackwells in Oxford had a good stock of O'Reilly books last time I
went there. Their website used to tell you the stock levels of each title
in the Oxford store, but this information is no longer available. Their
online store offers only four Tcl titles (including the Nutshell book that
you didn't like).
I use Brent Welch's "Practical Programming in Tcl and Tk", which I can
recommend.
There used to be more Tcl/Tk titles on the shelves; good titles have always
existed, but the fact that shelf space for Tcl/Tk has fallen in the last
five years probably indicates poor sales compared to Java and .NET. The
problem is that it's a downward spiral, because books on bookshop shelves
are important for recruiting and developing new users.
Keith.
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| Donal K. Fellows 2005-10-17, 3:57 am |
| Keith Nash wrote:
> There used to be more Tcl/Tk titles on the shelves; good titles have always
> existed, but the fact that shelf space for Tcl/Tk has fallen in the last
> five years probably indicates poor sales compared to Java and .NET. The
> problem is that it's a downward spiral, because books on bookshop shelves
> are important for recruiting and developing new users.
Part of the problem is that tt's been a while since the last major
Tcl/Tk book came out. I know there's one in the works, but it's stalled
until the set of major features in 8.5 is finalized.
Donal.
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| Larry W. Virden 2005-10-17, 7:00 pm |
| Have you checked web sites like half.com, ebay.com, or amazon.com ?
I've typically had great luck locating my books via these internet
sites.
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| Plebeian 2005-10-17, 7:00 pm |
| To add too Larry's list; I usually have very good luck at powells.com
Larry W. Virden wrote:
> Have you checked web sites like half.com, ebay.com, or amazon.com ?
> I've typically had great luck locating my books via these internet
> sites.
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| Mark Hobley 2005-10-18, 7:02 pm |
| Larry W. Virden <lvirden@gmail.com> wrote:
> Have you checked web sites like half.com, ebay.com, or amazon.com ?
> I've typically had great luck locating my books via these internet
> sites.
Yeah of course, but I wanted to have a look at the books before I bought them.
There are some crap ones (like the "In a Nutshell" book).
Regards,
Mark.
--
Mark Hobley
393 Quinton Road West
QUINTON
Birmingham
B32 1QE
Telephone: (0121) 247 1596
International: 0044 121 247 1596
Email: markhobley at hotpop dot donottypethisbit com
http://markhobley.yi.org/
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| Cameron Laird 2005-10-19, 7:00 pm |
| In article <ohuf23-m9u.ln1@neptune.markhobley.yi.org>,
Mark Hobley <markhobley@hotpop.deletethisbit.com> wrote:
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| ecky-l@web.de 2005-10-21, 3:58 am |
| Tcl should in general get more press coverage - not only in form of
books but also in form of articles in computer magazines.
I like the writing style of books like "Practical programming..." and
"Effective Tcl/Tk programming" a lot - they are written very rational
and target on solving real world problems. But to gain popularity, a
little more "bleeding-edge-buzzword-marketing-style" is often better
(as it is obviously done in many Java/.Net articles and volumes).
Maybe, the "bullshit generator" on
http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html is helpful ;-) (just a joke)
Eckhard
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