"can i look you in the eye and say that?"
I am working with Subbu on a book project this year. it has turned out to be quite an enjoyable experience.
right now we are completing the first draft and spending quite a bit of time in review and rewrite. more time than i'd initial thought. one of the things that is coming clear is that, when deciding what guidance should be included in the book, we needed a consistent measure - a yardstick for determining what was 'good enough' advice to pass on to our readers.
last night, after quite a bit of talk, we settled on this:
Can we, with a straight face, explain and justify any given recipe in this book to our prospective readers? If the answer is yes, the recipe stays. If not, it’s out.
turns out we both spend a good deal of our day talking to and working with other web application developers. and we both know that sometimes, the common advice, the typical recommendation, the 'agreed practice' is just rubbish. there are times when the folks creating and expounding on the theories just don't know as much as those tasked with doing the real everyday work of building successful web applications. and we just didn't want to be in the position of having to look those real-world developers in the eye and try to sell them some theory or practice that just doesn't make sense.
it's a tall order, really. and it will be a challenge to use this measure throughout the book. but i'm looking forward to it. and to the results.