From: rbs{at}snippets.org
To: c_echo{at}yahoogroups.com

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 tomtorfs{at}village.uunet.be wrote:

> BS> If I wanted a freebie that might be germane. What I'm
> BS> interested in, though, is a mutually beneficial business
> BS> arrangement.
>
> When someone mentions "a mutually beneficial business arrangement" I
> hear "freebie".

Obviously, you did miss part of this. The reason I wanted to reach him was
to see if I could obtain reprint rights from he and Pearson/Prentice Hall.
If so, then both he and PH would receive royalties.

> >> Find an American author.
>
> BS> He used to work for an American company - HP. Does that
> BS> satisfy your sense of chauvinism? In this case, I look for
> BS> the best regardless of national origin.
>
> There is no "sense of chauvinism" here. You said you can
> compress your writing to three pages by making references to
> the book by page and chapter. How useful is that to the reader
> if even _you_ can't buy the book?

Obviously, not very useful, hence my desire to find - or become - a
continuing source of the book. As for finding an American author... No one
else has ever written a comparable book simply because Straker wrote the
definitive work. As noted, if you research the topic, eventually every
discussion, every book's bibliography, they all wind up back at Straker's
work.

If you don't read Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic, you don't look for an
English-speaking author to produce a new Bible, you find a way to
translate and reprint the existing one. For software QA and departmental
standards folks trying to write C coding standards, Straker's book *is*
the Bible.

> If it was an American (recent) author referring to the book might make
> some sense although I personally find that 'style' arrogant and too
> pushy about what books I should own.

I don't really know what you're trying to say here, so I can't comment. If
you're reacting to the use of the word, "style", don't. As previously
noted, Straker doesn't espouse any particular coding style, but discusses
a number of options, each in the light of the psychological studies of
readability which comprise Chapter 1.

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