A book on SFML -- looking for author(s)!

[Tank]

Look I don't think that a community based book works.

Fully agree to that. A book should not be a collection of everyone's tutorials. It should be a consistent source of pure SFML power, printed on paper. (preferably by the library author himself; too bad you don't have the time, Laurent)

If you guys, whoever will do it, need someone for the networking stuff, drop me a line. I'm sure I can afford time for a chapter.

[Groogy]

That's probably more in the line on how it would work, we write on what we know best For me that would be shaders and post processing I guess

[Groogy]

Well little update here. I've been contacted again

They gave me more information this time though seems like the time is reduced to 4 months for the initial draft and the book is planned for 220 pages.

The content to be covered will be:

• Initialising Your Window (Setting up the rendering context)
• Making it a Game (Actually adding some basic gameplay)
• Game States and More! (Using threads to manage game states, i.e. switching between menus and levels)
• Eye Candy (Making things look even prettier)
• Making it Epic (Really adding the 'cool' gameplay features)
• Crank Up the Bass (Adding sound)
• Forever Alone? (Adding basic multiplayer support)
• Polish (Finishing touches)

So I find it as there will be quite some interesting topics to cover in the book Though it depends if they want independent chapters or they want a guide for the user to follow.

I'm interested in what kind of game would be nice to develop in the book? Pong is easy to make and easy to make networked. But that's just plain boring! Cool would be a 2D RPG I guess but that can quite easily grow quite big and not even work as networked.

I want to say that I am very open to discussion even if they would decide that I write it alone, or anyone else for that matter. The royalties is not the driving force in this project, the community is in my honest opinion and a book without some ideas from all the other guys wouldn't show what SFML is all about

[Laurent]

In case we go for a "community book", here is what the publisher says about it:

I would love for us to be able to do a community book. The problem that arises here is that we typically need a ‘lead writer’ to collate problems, queries and questions that the group may have. It’s a lot of work on our end as well in terms of paperwork. Say you had 10 people in the community willing to write a book, we’d need to draft a contract between 10 people, with the appropriate advance rates and royalties agreed. It’s a lot more complicated than contracting a single author, but in my view the prospect of developing a community title is highly appealing.
 
We’ve published multiple-author books before, and it is a lot of work from an editorial viewpoint – but if we can then say that this book was written by the SFML community for the SFML community, I think that hard work would pay off. How many people are you thinking of? If we could get 7 people to write a single 25-35 page chapter each, that seems reasonable to me – but then the scope of the book (and what we’d actually do) comes into question.

[Groogy]

I'm in touch with the commissioning editor now as well and he of course pointed out that they are toying with the idea of the "community book". He though didn't know I was among them it seemed so I pointed that out.

Anyway he wanted me to ask what you guys would feel about me writing, do I have your support, who wants to participate in this and with what do they want to participate? Is there anyone else than me that feel they got time to write parts to the book? Or do people only feel they want to come with ideas and help out a little?

[eXpl0it3r]

I'm interested in what kind of game would be nice to develop in the book? Pong is easy to make and easy to make networked. But that's just plain boring! Cool would be a 2D RPG I guess but that can quite easily grow quite big and not even work as networked.

I'd say a 2D RPG is too complex to develop in 4 month and write a detailed book about it, then again RPG is topic that can possible mean anything.
I would rather keep a look out to some arcade-like game, since they are enjoyable for the widest audience and fairly simple and straight forward to understand and implement. It may be boring yes, but better simple, doable and have a finished and polished game instead of a complex, harder to understand and maybe only a semi-finished game.

I would love for us to be able to do a community book. The problem that arises here is that we typically need a ‘lead writer’ to collate problems, queries and questions that the group may have. It’s a lot of work on our end as well in terms of paperwork. Say you had 10 people in the community willing to write a book, we’d need to draft a contract between 10 people, with the appropriate advance rates and royalties agreed. It’s a lot more complicated than contracting a single author, but in my view the prospect of developing a community title is highly appealing.

We’ve published multiple-author books before, and it is a lot of work from an editorial viewpoint – but if we can then say that this book was written by the SFML community for the SFML community, I think that hard work would pay off. How many people are you thinking of? If we could get 7 people to write a single 25-35 page chapter each, that seems reasonable to me – but then the scope of the book (and what we’d actually do) comes into question.

I like the idea of a community book, but as has been said before, it's very hard to manage and to get a enclosed book...

Anyway he wanted me to ask what you guys would feel about me writing, do I have your support, who wants to participate in this and with what do they want to participate? Is there anyone else than me that feel they got time to write parts to the book? Or do people only feel they want to come with ideas and help out a little?

I'd fully support you and whoever would want to join you.
I'm quite familiar with the graphics module (except shaders) and could help you out there, if needed and I also got some understanding of basics in game development (state handling, resource managment, ...).

Maybe you could contact DevilWithin (or he joins here again too), since he was quite open to writing on it.

[Groogy]

Maybe you could contact DevilWithin (or he joins here again too), since he was quite open to writing on it.

If DevilWithin or anybody else wants to talk with me I am available on the IRC channel. Will be fun to see what ideas people have
Come with ideas even if you don't plan on participating. Couldn't hurt right?

[Groogy]

Actually we created a new channel called #sfml-book you can join if you want to discuss with us.

[Laurent]

Actually we created a new channel called #sfml-book you can join if you want to discuss with us.

For those who can't participate (including me), don't forget to report important questions/news/decisions here

[Groogy]

Well we are brainstorming a lot right now so a lot of things changing. But it looks like it will be hard to fit an entire game into only 220 pages and 4 months. But we'll see later when we got more stuff ironed out.

[Laurent]

But it looks like it will be hard to fit an entire game into only 220 pages and 4 months

Don't hesitate to discuss with the publisher, I think they are open to suggestions and modifications. They may have relevant advices too, since it's not the first book of this kind that they publish.

[Groogy]

Alright I am currently writing up interested participants and writers. I will only write you as a writer if you can say with 100% certainty that you will be able to put the required time and effort into it. I will be trying to form the chapters a bit more concrete later the week and might get a better image on exactly what and how much has to be written.

Anyway let me know and I'll write you up. Here's a link to the read-only of the document: http://piratepad.net/ep/pad/view/ro.h4TeU0VBa2r/latest

Edit: Seems like the read-only version can't view lists properly. But should give you a basic idea of what we have discussed.


Image so  you can see how it should be.

[Laurent]

Thanks.

To clarify:
- are you officially the "lead", i.e. the one who syncs with the publisher, defines the final contents, etc.?
- do you need a forum to work with all contributors? (can be private if needed)

I'd like to clarify my role as well. I'd like to supervise the whole thing -- not taking decisions, but rather have an eye on everything (code and book), to make sure that everything goes in the right direction, and that I won't scream when I read the final book . Of course I'll also answer any question that people involved in this book need to ask me.
Would that be ok for you?

Unrelated question: do you plan to write the code in C++11?

[Groogy]

Well don't know if I am the official lead but I am the one dedicating most effort into it as I have already arranged a lot of my free time to enable myself to write the book. I've asked if others want to write but at most I get "I want to but can't promise anything" and those I put under interested participants. Currently it looks like I will be alone in writing. But I am still waiting on response from Packt and other SFML developers.

Sure the library is your baby and we want to give a good image of it in the process
The more you are a part of the process the better. Do you have anything to say about the first revision that has been posted here?

And I probably won't write in C++11, I aim to write so all platforms supported by SFML can follow the book and it has to be easy for new C++ developers to get into it. From my understanding MSVC is pretty far behind on this and getting boost to work is not something I would call newbie friendly. Correct me if I am wrong?

[Tank]

Is the book really targeted at C++ newbies? To learn C++ there are already a lot of books that do explain that very well. I'm always annoyed by books that are about a specific area of programming and try to teach the very basics of the underlying programming language.