Look, I mistrust AI and refuse the hype as much as you do, but there's nothing in that link that proves your claims.

No mention of a change in policy, or monitoring, or even a desire to replace humans with AI.

So unless you can provide proof, I'll treat this post as baseless fearmongering and a blatant lie, and I advise everyone else to do the same.

@tizmic O'Reilly books were always the best marketed, but rarely the best. Even without AI, their editing was very poor. I read several and they were full of errors.

My first four books were published by Pearson and their editors caught a lot of the things that made it into the final editions of O'Reilly books. The main reasons that they were popular seemed to be:

• They were cheap (because they cut corners everywhere).
• They attended all of the conferences and got a load of visibility.

These days, it's incredibly easy to self publish. I took advice from @mwl on my most recent book, used a copyeditor that he recommended (she did an amazing job) and used draft2digital for publishing. They coordinate with a number of print-on-demand places so they can be printed near where people order them and also put the eBook versions in a load of eBook stores.

Authors can get a much larger cut of the royalties with them (you can choose how much you sell for, I mostly want to get people to read the book rather than make money on this one, so I've set it so that we get almost nothing).

@david_chisnall @mwl I was recently reading Jon Bodner's "Learning Go" and it seemed hardly riddled with any errors. In fact, I thought it being a very positive piece of learning good.

Besides, aren't those books selling for 40€ and upwards? Is that considered cheap?

I am aware of Pearson books, but those are also selling for about 50€, I think. The only book over 100€ I can think of in my library would be Jonathan Pevsner's "Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics".

@tizmic @david_chisnall
When working with O'Reilly today, the author is basically on their own. If they turn in a good book, we get a good book.

Most tech folks don't have the skill to write a good book. Apparently Bodner does.

(That skill ain't THAT hard, btw. Thirty years ago, Tim O'Reilly said that it was easier to turn a techie into a writer than a writer into a techie. I would mostly agree.)

I'm sorry, but you seem to be spreading unfounded BS.

Here are O'Reilly's actual remarks, there doesn't seem to be anything remotely similar to what the reddit post describes.

oreilly.com/radar/ai-and-progr…

AI and Programming: The Beginning of a New Era

^{O’Reilly Media}

@guyjantic @david_chisnall @mwl So, Pearson is evil, O'Reilly is shifting in the same direction... any recommendations on sites that push indie content? (Unrelated, besides Anna's Archive?)
Esp. on software development?

What about other publishing houses, e.g. Wiley, Cambridge Univ. Press or Packt? (Although, I suspect the latter is also part of the O'Reilly team, right?

@tizmic @guyjantic @david_chisnall @mwl I've read a few books published by Packt and they've been very hit or miss. I also remember someone saying they're focusing on quantity over quality, but I can't find a credible source now.

I personally really like Manning, as they always include the DRM-free ebook version for free with every physical copy, and they have an early access program where you can provide feedback while the book is still being written.

@berglerma @tizmic @guyjantic @david_chisnall
If a publisher has many titles and they're hit-or-miss, they are pushing quantity over quality.

A publisher focused on quality would not let so many misses through.

@AMS @tizmic @guyjantic @david_chisnall @nostarch

if you're gonna go with trad pub, I do recommend No Starch.

Oh sure, I’ll ask an AI to make random coding requests to a number of AI’s while I do my own coding…

KPI’s? You get what you measure. Always. 🤣

O'Reilly still publishes books? I thought they'd turned into a web site pushing overpriced technical pablum. They used to be the go-to place for tech books, but once they shuttered the publishing business I haven't really thought about them (or patronized them.)

I did see that Tim gave up control of the company to his CFO back in 2011. So with a finance person in charge, I'm not surprised they care only about the bottom line, and would use a "KPI" policy to exploit their workers.

> The programming world was frankly getting a bit predictable for a while.

That's like saying construction is getting a bit boring when people were starting to apply engineering methods to building houses instead of holding up the roof with hope and prayers.
Predictable equals professional.
Predictable equals process.
What a Muppet.

#oreillybook #oreilly #AI

@briankrebs

That isn’t what he said at all. Might help to read the actual blog post:

oreilly.com/radar/the-end-of-p…

The End of Programming as We Know It

^{O’Reilly Media}

"source: <now deleted reddit post>"

... and of course it's full of crap.

But because it nicely fits the narrative the pitchforks are already out.

Note: MANY commenters on the source say the OP grossly misrepresented Tim's statement, and the post has now been moderated away.

reddit.com/r/programming/comme…

I'm not saying Tim is suddenly a great guy (O'Reilly Media has been going downhill for years,) just that this specific complaint is overblown.

why would a person who writes books for developers tell people to stop developing?

Isn't pushing for AI use going to decrease the number of books purchased

Well, in this case, I think I'd replace their books also with GenAI ... since Mwta's Llama we all know that copyright and IP are blocking progress ...

So why should I even care paying for their books, when I can have an AI stealing them for me?

Can we just create an alternate AI world for billionaires where they can think they're replacing us with AI, flying to Mars, exploiting workers, making a gazillion dollars, etc.?

Meanwhile we normal, mentally-less-damaged people can get back to real world problems and deal with climate change, poverty, wars, etc 👍