[eee_c]

I think we're actually mostly in agreement :)

Neither The SPDY Book nor Dart for Hipsters was meant to be a definitive guide on their respective subjects. They are 150 page intros and, as you say, probably well suited for this approach.

For Recipes with Backbone, we aimed for the intermediate / advanced audience. Again, I agree that I probably could not have gotten there in 3 months on my own. For that, I relied heavily on my co-author (Nick Gauthier), who is battle tested with Backbone.js. So, again, I think we are in agreement.

That said, even the intro books are living books. I plan on refreshing and adding as the technology evolves and I as become battle tested (I'm working on edition 1.1 of The SPDY Book now). So over time, I hope to get closer to the ideal tome on the subjects.

[tuxguy]

Maybe slightly OT, i would like to know your motivations for diving into multiple distinct subjects ?

Do you, kind of like Sal Khan (of Khan Academy fame) feel curious to know more & more stuff, & then want to share your knowledge & understanding with the rest of the world, by writing books ?

Context : my comment above http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3904024

[eee_c]

Yup, that is absolutely why I do this. I'm not sure it would be possible to keep this up without an intense curiosity about these topics :)

There is also a selfish aspect to it. By writing the best book that I am capable of, I learn this stuff much better than I would by playing around with it for a day or two.

Motivations and results feed each other and (hopefully) produce great results.