My initial tweet:

Would you agree that what some call “fluff” in tech reading/writing, others might call previously unknown info (a.k.a. “learning”)?

A more detailed version of that question with more than 140 characters allowed:
Within many tech books, you’ll find explanations of topics that advanced developers have known for years but beginners have never even known existed. While the simplest answer is to look at the target audience of the book (beginner, intermediate, advanced), the question still presents itself within smaller breakdowns of those experience levels. To take the middle ground, let’s say the book in question is targeted at the intermediate level and that one person from each of the three levels is reading it. Does the beginner dev view the explanation of certain topics as useful information while the advanced dev views it as nothing more than regurgitated information from places like Adobe livedocs? Based on the responses I received, I think the answer may not be a straight up yes or no. So here’s a general breakdown of the different views I’ve seen. They all make complete sense to me if I step back and view them with different thoughts. I’d love to hear more so feel free to add your point of view to the comments.

Definitely fluff
There were a few people replying that felt this kind of information was undeniably considered fluff. They want to get to the meat of the information on which the book was written. If they came across anything they didn’t understand or already know, they would rather turn to livedocs, APIs, etc.

A “necessary evil”
Another thought was that it may be fluff, but someone is learning from it. While reader A may come across information of which he is fully aware, (s)he tends to skip past it without thinking too much of it and knows that reader B may learn a quick lesson while reading the book. (I think I favor this one)

One stop learning
Some people look at it as a sort of “one stop shop” where they could get everything they need without putting the book down. If a developer is reading a book which is covering topics that developer has never worked with, they can learn it all right there. This line of thought may seem a bit lazy on the surface, but may also be efficient for the lesson at hand. If a beginner developer is reading about classes but has no idea when to use private vs protected, they don’t have to stop reading the book to go look it up online. Instead, they get the explanation right there in the book and they continue on with their learning.

So that’s it. There’s the question and those are the general thoughts people presented as answers. Now it’s your turn. How do you view that type of information in a tech book?

• I’m only trying to share my views
• I’m not trying to battle with Ted Patrick
• I do not think that ALL evangelists are elitists (I have an enormous amount of respect for most evangelists)
• I do not think that ALL industry leaders are elitists (I have an enormous amount of respect for most industry leaders)

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the post…

If you keep up with Ted Patrick’s blog, you’ll notice that it’s obvious (based on the title of my post) that I’m writing in response to a post Ted wrote on Saturday and tweeted about on Monday. Why am I responding to Ted’s post? Well, for three reasons:

Reason #1: It may have been related to my post
Within his post, Ted states that:

It isn’t some elitist club, but rather those that share gain influence and respect with the community.

I was most likely reading too much into it, but I couldn’t help but think that was in reference to my post on Flash Platform community elitism. By the way, I think I may have been misunderstood because my point was never that there was an elitist club. Instead I was saying that there are SOME in the upper echelons who act like elitists.

Reason #2: I believe there are more pieces to the community puzzle than just sharing code
So after reading Ted’s post, I had a few thoughts. I thought that, yes, sharing IS good and people should do it. Then I thought of how sharing isn’t the only key to working your way to the top. Then I shared my thoughts with Ted via a comment to his post.

Reason #3: I tried to share thoughts in a comment on Ted’s post, but it was never approved
This is the one where I very honestly got confused (confused, not mad) by Ted’s actions in relation to his words. I completely understand it’s his blog and he can approve whatever comments he sees fit… I respect that. However, there’s a bit of irony there when you have a man saying that we all have a voice and that all of our voices can and will be heard while turning around and only approving comments that completely agree with him (IN THIS CASE).

So after I wrote my thoughts and submitted them to Ted’s blog, I waited… and waited… and waited. Finally, when I started seeing other comments showing up, I realized that mine wasn’t going to. While I was talking to a couple of coworkers about this strange turn of events, one of them decided to run a little test. He was going to post a “100% agreeing, ass-kissing” comment to see how long it took to get approved… it didn’t take long at all:

In case you can’t read it it says:

I agree 100%. I really love this flow of conversation. It is great to get such insightful help on something like this. Self-marketing can be hit or miss. It is nice to see someone in the “elitist club” giving us n00bs tips on getting a little community hug. Keep up the good work!

I didn’t copy my comment to Ted’s post because I honestly didn’t think there would be any issue with it. So I’ll do my best to remember some of it:

I agree that sharing is good and that everyone should do it. However, I think there are other things to figure in. Things like passion, extra time after hours learning and coding, time away from your family. The face time at conferences, the “who you know” factor, etc.
What if you don’t have the extra time outside of the office? What if you can’t get in the circle of friends at the top? What if you can’t afford to go to conferences and get face time? I think when you figure all of those and more in to the equation, the likelihood of a developer climbing the community ranks is a little diminished. Sharing code alone will not make you the next Keith Peters, Grant Skinner, Joshua Davis. It takes much more than that.

Again, I didn’t copy it so that’s not exact but you get the point.

So help me out here if you can. I’m confused. Why did my comment get ignored? Was it because I didn’t completely agree? Was it because I was presenting some different pieces to figure in? Some different points of view? Was it because Ted was mad at me because of a misunderstanding about my previous post? Maybe he just didn’t want to deal with the debate?

PLEASE read this part
I am not trying to battle with Ted and I’m not trying to battle with any other evangelists or industry leaders. I have the utmost respect for those that have worked their way to the top and become industry leaders. I also have a huge amount of respect for everything that evangelists do for the community. However, I also completely stand by my previous post and its intended message. Those at the top of the community are NOT in some big “elitist club”, but there ARE a few up there with elitist attitudes. There are elitists in every walk of life and this industry is no exception.

And this part
Call it paranoia if you like, but it’s a shame that I feel like several people in the community may turn completely against me for sharing my views on this whole topic. That I may very quickly become the bad guy because I “called out” an evangelist and disagreed with him. And that I may be looked down on for having the gall to say that there are people out there with holier-than-thou attitudes. How dare me!

Flame on! (again)
And now, without further ado, let the flames begin!

Note: I am definitely NOT a profesional photographer.
Another Note: Numbers 2, 3 and 4 were taken with my iPhone.
Another-nother Note: Roll over the images to see the before/after

Photo 1:


Photo 2:


Photo 3:


Photo 4:


Ok, that's all I got. See ya later.

So what is the Mark of the Web? Well, as Microsoft puts it:

The MOTW is a comment added to the HTML markup for a Web page. When a user opens the Web page from their local machine, Internet Explorer references this comment to determine the security zone in which it should run the page.

Here is the line as I most easily recognize it (although it can be modified in several different ways):

So why am I writing about it? Because I removed it from the HTML of a project I was working on. After I removed it, I started getting security errors when I tested my project locally in IE. It took me a while to find out what was going on and I hope that maybe this post will help others find it more quickly. So anyway, there it is. The Mark of the Web. I hope this post saves someone a little time tracking down their local security errors in IE.

So what could my change in jobs possibly mean to you? Well, if you're interested in the possibility of becoming a Flash Game Developer and working side by side with other extremely talented Flash Developers, Blockdot has at least one (and maybe more) open spots. They are located in Dallas, TX and you can find more information about the position(s) on their careers page.