I assume Mark is refering to the DigiNotar hack (and earlier Comodo ones) and the ensuing shit-storm which showed what an awful security model the current CA/certificate system really is.
Well, if you used microdata, you have an easy migration path, and if you used some other syntax, you don't. You can call that whatever you like, but it doesn't change the facts.
This is essentially everything I would have said on the subject. Python 3 is technically very good, but no one is using it, hence no commercial interest in the book. The optimist would say it was just ahead of its time. The pessimist would say Python 3 is a dead end and I backed the wrong horse. I'd say the jury is still out.
He discusses "earning out" on a recent post from his blog[1]:
> The book went on sale in mid-August and earned out almost immediately. “Earning out” is a publishing term which means that the book has sold enough copies that my cut of the profits has paid back the advance payments that O’Reilly gave me during the writing process. Which means that I’m already receiving royalty checks for real money.
Interesting deductions! I just wanted to pipe in here to confirm that your math and your stated assumptions are correct. My take is the standard 10%. My "top tier" status, as you flatteringly put it, bought me the freedom to simultaneously publish the book online under a Creative Commons Attribution license. I negotiated for licensing, not money. I have no regrets.
Despite being approached to do the 2nd edition of what was a popular book (in its field), my negotiations on the licensing failed and, as anticipated, the 2nd edition has done extremely poorly compared to the 1st due to new competition and a lack of anyone serious recommending the book because it's not available in an open format to "scope out." (And as someone who recommends books, this is key for me. I can't buy every beginners' book that I don't need merely to judge them for others.)
Your post will serve as interesting ammunition in future discussions between many authors and their publishers, I suspect, and I applaud you for putting it out!
Guides like yours (and Modernizr) are a case for browsers to make feature detection available through a Modernizr-like API.
We're having to get very, very creative to detect support for some features (e.g. writing data to an <input> and seeing if it sticks — it took a while before someone, Mike Taylor, iirc, figured that one out), and we're trusting that every new feature will be indirectly, accidentally detectable.
I'd much rather there was a standard way for a browser to say, "yep, I support this".
Here's the story about the name: I wrote http://diveintomark.org/archives/2010/01/29/tinkerers-sunset earlier this year, decrying the lack of "tinkerability" of the iPad and similar closed devices. "There won't ever be a MacsBug for the iPad. There won't be a ResEdit, or a Copy ][+ sector editor, or an iPad Peeks & Pokes Chart."
One of the common refrains in the comments was that the iPad includes top-of-the-line support for a perfectly open, tinkerable platform: the web. Thus, the "HTML5 Peeks, Pokes and Pointers" chart was born.
Also, I just purchased a real live physical original Beagle Bros "Peeks, Pokes and Pointers" chart to hang up in my mancave^Woffice. Next to my Apple //es. Plural. So there's that.
I (the author) would agree with this statement, except for the baffling fact that Google Chrome Frame has a non-zero number of users. So obviously some people thought "I don't want a new browser, but I'd be OK with installing this plugin."
Strangely enough this was the sentiment at Google. I was talking to a Googler in a recent GTUG meeting and they told me exactly that: Some people won't change browsers but they are OK with installing a plugin.
You don't read the news much, do you? ;)