Frank Willison. Here's the link where they announce his death and reprint many of his quotes
http://www.oreilly.com/news/frank_0701.html Ob Perl Reference - Frank On Perl Evangelists: "One word of warning: if you meet a bunch of Perl programmers on the bus or something, don't look them in the eye. They've been known to try to convert the young into Perl monks." On Thu, 2002-01-10 at 10:44, Chris Devers wrote: > On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Joe Johnston wrote: > > > The slow conference season, business deals that didn't blossom as well > > as expected and the death of their editor-in-chief all contributed to > > what can only be called a shitty year. > > Oh no! May I ask who the editor-in-chief was? None of the books seem to > mention this position at all, though I've noticed that they have been > adjusting the format of their books recently (not as many with RepCover > binding, less color on the book spines (is the ink expensive or is this > just aesthetic?), etc., and the colophons now read, not "designed by Edie > Freedman", but "based on a series design by Edie Freedman", which had me > wondering if she might have left the company... > > > Should O'Reilly fail to recover, the Open Source movement would lose one > > of its earliest and loudest supporters. This isn't to say the OSS would > > disappear, but it might be harder for some technologies (like Python or > > XML-RPC) to break through to a wider audience. > > Yes, this is what I was thinking. It seems like the appearance of an > O'Reilly book on a given subject could promote it from an esoteric niche > into something that a lot of publishers would start writing about because > a lot of people had begun using it. These research/work areas certainly > weren't originated with ORA, and having ORA's blessing isn't necessarily > the most significant point in a project's evolution, but the attention > drawn by one of their books can't be a bad thing. . > > > Perl will be fine. Remember, O'Reilly isn't a software house; they're a > > publisher of great books. Still, I hope 2002 brings decidedly better > > news to ORA. > > Hear hear! > > > If you would like to help O'Reilly, do consider buying a book from their > > web site (http://www.ora.com). > > Do they get a significantly bigger cut if you buy things there as opposed > to in a regular bookstore? I suppose so -- indie record labels get more if > you buy direct, so why shouldn't indie publishers be the same way? But is > shipping cost set against that bigger cut for them? Would that cancel out > the advantage of buying from their site? > > > > -- > Chris Devers, no longer afraid of VB, for it does not tempt me > > "People with machines that think, will in times of crisis, > make up stuff and attribute it to me" - "Nikla-nostra-debo" >
