Today…

The topic that struck me most in the list server mailings was the talk/discussion about M books, M publications, etc. This commentary is being written on Sunday February 22^nd, 1998. The time at the moment is precisely 4:18 am. MWM005 announced MSM-Workstation. When this issue went online, I felt (as I said in that issue) that this product is really good and should get as much publicity as possible. Two people and myself wrote a two page review/article and meticulously ensured that it the end product was light and enjoyable. Our targeted audience are people who (although maybe familiar with another product) don’t know that there is a programming language called M. The work was anything but technical, not even a SET command was used.

On the top of my list was a British publication, which I felt would be the ideal place for the work. The type of articles carried in this publication are normally of the light type and it dedicates numerous pages to new products and product reviews. Besides I had already established contact with someone within that company (who had dropped by MWM and had sent me an e-mail). I wrote to this person telling him what I had. He promptly gave me the e-mail of the reviews editor and I wrote to the lady in charge attaching the article. After about 2 weeks, I receive an e-mail telling me that she felt that the product is not of interest to their readers.

I sat down and looked at the article. There were 3 images and the file was quite large. Maybe the person was ticked off because of the size. I reduced the images (and file size) by a third. Now it’s more manageable. Found another publication. An authoritative publication that also has a new products section. I logged into their web site and their list of editors. After going through the list a few times I short listed three "best" people I should submit my list to; one seemed to be in charge of reviews, the other two were associated with this section, one had 15 year experience in computing and had even worked in medical informatics the other was quite young (probably never heard about M).

I sent the article within an e-mail to the one with 15 years experience. My line of thinking was that being a veteran, this person would publish the work. Three weeks, no response. I sent the article to another person on the list; no response. Reduced the file again by killing off an image and sent it to the third person on my list. Got a reply the next day: "the person best suited to review your article is <xyz>". <xyz> is not even listed as an editor. Last progress in almost 3 months is that the article is now at this person. The saga continues…

Why aren’t there a lot of M books (which, let’s face it, has diversified) quite substantially? Because M is simple? I cannot come anywhere close to agreeing with this statement. Which language is difficult if we get down to it. Learn the keywords and syntax and it no longer is difficult. And yet shelves almost break under the weight of some programming language titles. How come there are 20 beginners reference to the language, 10 intermediate and 5 advanced titles, with a respectable number of books that utilise the language for a specific topic (eg "Graphical file formats using <language>", or "Algorithms in <language>"). The issue is not ease, it is economics. A publisher will only publish a manuscript if the revenue is greater than the cost.

Let us assume that M titles are in demand; given the nature of this language, how many books would fill our shelves telling us how to thinker the language. For example, I have tinkered MSM PC/Plus so that after 5 minutes of inactivity at the > prompt (programmer mode) it exits by itself. I’ve written a modified version of %SS that will list the user/device name associated with a port. I’ve also written a modified version of %D (called %D4). These are some of the areas I can remember altering (it is quite early in the morning!). How many books are out there that go into such topics? Before anyone starts emailing me the parts of the license telling me that if I alter the language I do so at my own risk, one must appreciate that this could constitute just a couple of sections of an intermediate/advanced book on M. How many titles exist that tell you how to call in external (binary) modules into M. How many texts provide routines that allow you to address devices (a modem) for example? Is this simple?

Sticking to the scenario that M is popular, how many texts would present different approaches to teaching the language. From my own experiences in teaching, I had the benefit of learning though the variety of work I saw and have learnt (both style and solution) from some of my student’s work. One of my biggest problems was that of dealing with students who felt they knew everything about computing just because they knew a language. Trying to persuade such individuals that besides the language elements there were issues relating to database design, making things flexible and user defined, issues relating to consistency and use of certain techniques (and language constructs) that could make a product a hundred-fold better, facilitate development and make everything more readable.

What shall we do about it? Perceiverance is the name of the game. For our sake and the sake of M. We must first recognise the problem and openly discuss it in electronic and people groups. Our aim is to think about solutions and when the need arises pull concurrently the same end of the rope. For those who might want to start tugging a bit now, check out our MWM Campaign page.