O’Reilly publishing and quality
I have bookshelves filled with books, manuals, and guides purchased over the past decade or more from O’Reilly Media. In many cases I have several editions of the same book. I currently have two more newly-published O’Reilly books winging their way to me from Amazon in the USA (it’s cheaper than purchasing them locally, even when you include the substantial freight costs – but that’s another story). So, I think I can call myself a fan and a repeat customer.
BUT… the thing that annoys me, having purchased a book which has supposedly been passed by a large number of pairs of eyes, is the number of typographical (and other) errors contained therein. Other books, by comparison, have fewer errors. What’s gone wrong here? (To be fair, I’m not talking about hundreds of errors, just enough to be noticeable and annoying).
Are steps being missed out such that a deadline can be met? Or have people just become more careless? I’m not going to stop purchasing from O’Reilly, but it can make learning something new even more challenging when sample code and illustrative examples are just plain wrong.
