If you're a Maven user and like Eclipse, you might want to checkout the new
Maven Integration Plugin for Eclipse 0.9.0. Euxx has a couple blog posts talking about the new features - looks like pretty cool stuff to me.
The second feature is especially cool. If your dependencies supply SCM information - you can import the project from its source control system. Maven may have warts, but it also has incredible potential.
Scott Bain has an interested blog entry called Writing and Publishing a Book:
I recently completed the process of getting a book published ("Emergent Design"). It was my first time doing this, and I thought it might be valuable to some of you if I shared some of the things I learned about writing a book, and about the publishing world.
...
Now, it turns out that I made a bit of a mistake, but got lucky.
The mistake? I wrote the book, then went to the publisher. This can lead to a real disaster. You may have written a beautiful, smart, compelling book for which there is no market whatsoever. Even a great book that nobody wants to read is worthless.
In my case, I knew there was a market because the market had asked me to write the book. Still, if I'd gotten involved with the publisher earlier, several things would have happened:
- They would have kept me on a writing schedule. From time to time I got lackadaisical about getting the book done, and the publisher would have held my feet to the fire a little. That would have been healthy for me.
- They would have reviewed chapters as I wrote them, which would give me early and frequent feedback. In other words, I would have gained all the benefits of using a Lean/Agile approach.
- They would have helped me write. I didn't realize that publishers have extensive support mechanisms to help their authors; access to peer-review, copy editors, technical editors, and so on.
In other words, they would have really smoothed the process. [
Read More]
Good to know - thanks Scott! I've been thinking about writing a book again and was actually considering writing first and shopping for a publisher later. I guess that's the wrong approach eh?
