> It's a day for asking your views ...
> Many of you know that I'm trying to write a book about Exim. I should
> have asked this earlier: What kind of Exim book would you like to have?
I'd purchase any book on exim, even a murder mystery whose denoument
relied on decoding the headers of a particularly tricky and
inconveniently bounced message generated by a misconfigured exim!
So, having gone through the other 27 comments on this topic (as I
type), here is a slightly contrary view. I'd go for:
> 3. Something else?
The "online" documentation on exim is wonderful - the exim overview,
spec, filter spec and FAQ give detailed definitions of the syntax
of the configuration files, answers to operational problems and
the like.
What's more, they do it in near real time (i.e. are pretty close
to what you actually have running on your systems) and are available
in a form that, while I can't read them in the bath without having
printed them out and developed extra strong arms, I can grep through
with good effect.
The analogy of "good" books, such as the O'Reilly crab book and
"Programming with Perl", are slightly flawed - my reasoning is that
these books _are_ good, but fulfill a very time limited purpose.
They'll be used extensively in the early stages of ones exposure
to the subject, then lie around gathering dust until you need to
indoctrinate someone else or argue a fine point.
I own a (very) large number of books, all of them purchased for a
good reason, but use a handful of them on a daily basis, purely
because they cover a non-obvious aspect of a particular subject in
a unique way. The "Perl Cookbook" out of the O'Reilly stable is
one such. I find it an intriguing book because it provides a lot
of scope for lateral thinking about how to use the tool at your
disposal, and you keep on coming back to it to jog yourself out of
the day to day rut, or when you're really stuck in an emergency
and need a hint on how to do something without having the luxury
of establishing it from first principles. Contrarily, I use the
Sendmail book to prop open the door of my office.
An "Exim Cookbook" would be something I'd use extensively, and
continuously. But I suspect it wouldn't be easy to compile or
write in any realistic time frame!
> I suppose another way of putting the question is: What kind of reader
> should the book be aimed at?
Too many, and the real answer is one of expediency. Do you wish
to preach to the converted, or to gain new disciples? My suggestion
is very selfish...
> Note: I am certainly not going to write more than ONE book. That is
> proving quite hard enough.
Perhaps you'll change your tune once this one is out of the way?
Regards,
Jacot
--
F.F. Jacot Guillarmod - IT Division - Rhodes University - Grahamstown
mailto:Jacot@ru.ac.za tel:+27.46.603-8600 fax:+27.46.622-7764
The views expressed above are not necessarily those of Rhodes University
