As of around this time last week, I am no longer writing for Manning.
This decision has been a long time coming. Ever since I started working for Manning I’ve had issues with their tooling. I covered these in posts like “Don’t print hard-copies” and “The Writing Process”). They’ve been saying now for two years that they were going to fix it and… nothing much has been done.
I got so frustrated with their system two weeks in, I decided to write my own. I demonstrate part of Manning’s system and part of my own, in this short video. I wrote my own review system in a relatively short period of time.
The writing tools are something that I need to use everyday and if they’re just getting in my way, it totally kills my vibe to write. I don’t want to hate writing, because I love writing. I love the feeling I get when I can clearly explain something to someone the first time in writing and they just get it.
So, no more writing for Manning because their tools for doing it are terrible. The people at Manning are nothing short of excellent.
Rails 4 in Action will be published by Manning – they have the rights to the book, not me – meaning they will need to source another author to do it. For any questions related to that process, contact support@manning.com. They’ll know more about it than I do.
All of that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped writing Rails material completely. Oh no no no. You just wait.