Making me happy

One of the things I want to do in 2015 is write more. This, like all New Year’s type resolutions, is invariably doomed, but we’ll take it as it comes. I also want to write more about things that aren’t programming, because, well, there are a lot of things that aren’t programming but are still interesting to write about.

Combining these ideas, I’m going to try (and probably fail) to do a weeklyish “What’s making me happy this week” blog post based loosely on the similar feature at the end of the NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour Podcast. That’s, of course, not this post. But the first one is coming.

But first, a word from our sponsor

It’s been a while since I did a flat-out update post. So here is one.

The book, by which I mean Rails 4 Test Prescriptions is out. In print, in an actual physical object that has been read by stuffed monkeys across this great planet of ours. And also a few people.

Couple things:

The book is, of course, available from Pragmatic. You can also get it from Amazon. And, unlike the previous version, you can buy the Kindle edition directly from Amazon, if, for some reason that’s the only ebook version you want.

As part of what might, if you squinted at it hard enough, be called a marketing push, I was a guest on both the Ruby Rogues and Code Newbie podcasts. Happily enough, I repeat myself almost zero times between the two of them because the discussions went off in completely different directions. Also, the Code Newbie podcast is worth listening to even if you aren’t a Code Newbie, and Saron is amazingly organized and putting together something really neat.

I also was lucky enough to be a guest chef for two episodes of Ruby Tapas. This isn’t really part of any marketing push except coincidentally. Avdi was looking for a number of guests to help with his schedule as his family was gaining a new baby. They were fun to do, and I’m thinking about ways to distribute other screencasts if I can find the time to do some.

Oh, and according to the PragPub magazine, Rails 4 Test Prescriptions was the top selling book at Pragmatic in December, which I am putting here because someday I’ll read this and it will make me happy. I will say a) this is a little bit less impressive than you might think, since Pragmatic only put out a couple of new titles in December, b) it’s probably less books than you think, and c) I’m still a little too happy about this – the first version of the book never got higher than 4th, and I wasn’t really expecting any better this time around.

The relative sales between the two versions are actually kind of interesting. The comparison dates aren’t quite exact (version one went on sale as a beta in April, and I think they started taking orders at the end of the following February, version two hit beta this June and shipped in December).

So, we’re talking about April-Dec 2009 for the first book and June-Dec 2014 for the second. Although this is an extra couple of months for the first book, some of the first book’s biggest moths were Feb/Mar 2010 and aren’t counted here. So it’s not really an apples to apples comparison.

Ebook sales for the two versions are almost identical (the first book is a hair higher). The physical book sales are a lot less this time around – even though all the physical book sales being counted for the first book would have been pre-orders. For the first version, Ebooks outsold physical books about 6 to 1, this time around it’s more like 17 to 1. (Though I expect that ratio to drop back down once Amazon and other bookstore sales get counted). Overall, sales are about 90% ish of the first version through December.

Coming up

I have a few conference and meetup talks coming up.

I’ll be doing a talk entitled “What we talk about when we talk about testing” at both a Chicago Ruby North Shore meetup on February 7, and then again at Groupon Geekfest March 3.

I’ll be at Ancient City Ruby March 25-27, doing two things. On March 25, I’ll be doing what is, I think, iteration 4 of the “How to do Fancy Object Things in Rails Without Losing Your Mind” full-day work shop (not it’s actual title). And then sometime during the conference itself I’ll be giving a talk on estimation, and Trust-Driven development. Really looking forward to this one.

Oh, and the books

There are two things that you might have given me money for and still be expecting some content. Let’s take them one at a time.

Trust-Driven Development

Status: was about 30-40 percent done when I abandoned it to start Rails 4 Test Prescriptions.

I’ve picked this back up. I was really hoping this would be done by the time Ancient City Ruby comes around. I think it’s got a fair shot of getting there.

In retrospect, I may have overestimated the audience for people reading my rants about projects. However, I really like writing it, and I think it’s got good advice. So you should read it.

Ember

Status: First edition finished. I promised I’d take another swing once HTMLBars came in and Ember Data hit 1.0, which I was hoping would be roughly August 2014.

Well, HTMLBars will officially be in Ember as of a week or two from now, Ember Data may well actually hit 1.0 some day, plus we’ve got a whole new suite of tools in Ember CLI, which also now brings in EC6 language features.

My probably ambitious goal is a redo of the whole book, top to bottom, using Ember CLI, EC6, and other cool new stuff to build an application. So it’ll be almost 100% new, and probably under the more direct title Master Space and Time With Ember.

Existing owners will get it for free. I’m not sure what will happen to the other MSTWJS books or how I might bundle them.

I’m also not sure when I will start, though it probably will wait until Trust-Driven Dev finishes.