For a whole year, this book consumed every ounce of my energy, and vacuumed my social life dry. Then, when I thought I was done, the publisher informed me that I had written too much, and that I would have to cut out more than 300 pages. Those pages ended up online instead of in print, though that still left nearly 1,000 pages for the book itself. The communication failures that resulted in this second round were a frustrating object lesson for me. Seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, then having it yanked back out from under you... it sucks. Not to mention the pain of having to figure out what could be cut without undermining the strength of the project.
Anyway, I have very high hopes for Be. Not everybody does, but there are a whole lot of pundits out there who get a kick out of declaring things irrelevant that they've never even tried. Nobody who actually spends some quality time with BeOS can knock it and maintain their self-respect. There are just too many good things happening here.
Some people think I'm crazy for being a voice in the wilderness. I have two responses to that. First off, I don't plan to be a lone protagonist for long. New ventures like the advent of Be Magazine (from the publishers of Linux Journal) mean that the press is starting to wake up. But second, I don't need 10 million readers. If I sell 50,000 copies (and this looks like a distinct possibility), I'll do very well. BeOS is only ever going to appeal to 5-10% of the computing population at the most. Be is a small company. They like it that way, I like it that way, and the users like it that way. Not that Be would shirk from a growing user base, but being enormous and swollen just isn't one of their goals. Small and closely communicative maps to fast and smart. Big is regarded with caution and skepticism at Be, and I really respect that.
I'm glad to have the book finished at last, but I do miss working on it.
I wrote a book about an obsession last year, and now it's been published. It's big and thick and chunky but I hope it doesn't read like a normal computer book. I hope that people who read it will find something contagious in it and will be inspired to have hope for the boring, clip-art computer industry. I think there's got to be a better way. Lots of other people feel this way too, but not a whole lot of people are actually willing to try another way, no matter how easy you make it for them.
Feedback to Scot at shacker.
For without a feedback loop, nothing grows.
