On Wed, 21 Mar 2001, Darren Mackay - Lists wrote:
> What format will your Exim book take?
It will be printed on paper with 85% recycled contents, 15% post-
consumer waste (at least, that's what other O'Reilly books say, so I
assume it will be the same). It is written in English, and is around 600
pages long, with 22 chapters and 2 appendices.
> How different will it be from the exim
> doco?
It will be printed on paper ....
<slap>
Seriously ... the book is not a reference manual. Though it covers a lot
of material, it does not cover some of the really esoteric things, like
the iplookup router and the translate_ip_address option. It is meant to
be read in order, and it tries to introduce and expand on Exim concepts
by building up ideas, rather than giving a reference description of
something all in one go. There are numerous examples. There are also
chapters on email in general, and stuff about the way Exim processes
operate.
I have found it extremely hard to write this book. Had I known at the
start how hard it would be, I might not have started. I am flattered by
the interest shown, and by the fact that people are actually ordering it
without seeing it. I hope they are not disappointed.
I think the main difficulty (apart from the fact that I'm too close to
Exim) is that too many concepts intermix with each other. For example,
if you want to give examples of routers (or other drivers) other than
the most trivial cases, you need string expansions and lookups, but you
can't cover them first, because in order to give meaningful examples of
string expansions and lookups, you need the drivers. In the reference
manual, I describe the lookups, expansions, and lists first, with very
few examples, but this approach is wrong for a book that is supposed to
be instructional. What I've ended up doing is introducing expansions and
lookups bit by bit, as needed for routers, etc., and then having an "in
depth" chapter later. Of necessity, this leads to some repetition.
The book is not intended to replace the reference manual, which will
remain the program's specification, and is always likely to be more
up-to-date than the book. It will also be complete. The reference
manual, on the whole, lists options etc in alphabetical order for ease
of random reference. In the book, the ordering is mostly by topic, for
serial reading.
I hope this helps, but for the best answer, wait till it hits the
bookshops and take a look for yourself.
--
Philip Hazel University of Cambridge Computing Service,
ph10@??? Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.
