Thank you all for starting this vibrant thread. I wanted to address some concerns about this book.

Concern #1. Who is it for?
This book is for librarians, administrators, students and others who are interested in programming. If you have been programming for some time this book may not be for you but you might contribute.

Concern #2. What chapters will be included? The call was meant to be read as open and flexible. Please contact us if you feel you have something to contribute. We already have had a great response and about ten chapters / topics have interested authors. We are getting to the point where we will have to group authors and turn away suggested topics. 

Yes, we imagine XML-like content will be in. Yes, PHP and MySQL will be in it also. What else will be in it? It may not have your favorite language but the book is not meant for just one person.

Concern #3. What is the structure? The structure will address the history and some of the nuts and bolts mentioned by others on this thread. Books are limited by space constraints but we hope to make the book have some longevity and connection to the larger field.

Concern #4. What is the approach? The approach follows the traditional LITA guide approach. It looks at specific cases in libraries and guides readers on how to address problems in specific ways. Good programmers still may find this book useful because they may see projects or code they want to port to different languages.

Concern #5. Basic are you kidding me?!? It is not for me to judge who uses what programming lang. If a library or person out there has an application that might be useful for others in our field to see, we want to hear about it.


Again contact us if you would like to contribute something. This is a long process and the book is still in development.

Thanks!

Editors
Ron Brown (ronbrown a.t. mailbox dot sc dot edu)
Beth Thomsett-Scott (beth.thomsett-scott a.t. unt dot edu)