My experience writing "Reactive Web-Applications with Play". This is my subjective view on writing a book with Manning. I'm not finished yet so there will likely be a second version of this presentation when the book is out. Note if you weren't at the talk: the "know nothing" part refers to discovering the depth of a topic while writing, which I find to be one of the nicest things about writing (because I really like the subject matter)

1. Writing a technical book
Vienna Scala User Group Meetup February 2015
Manuel Bernhardt - @elmanu

2. Agenda
1. Why I'm writing a book
2. The writing process
3. Writing at Manning
4. About the book

3. Why
1. I like writing
2. To learn more about the subject matter (which I like
love)
3. To do something else than coding

4. Non-Why
1. Money
2. "A quick thing on the side"

5. Writing process
4 I (try to) write every day for 2
hours
4 Asciidoc & TextMate & Ruby
script
4 I (Try to) plan chapter and
think of examples ahead of
time

6. Before writing a chapter

7. After writing a chapter

8. After writing a chapter

9. My impression of
writing at Manning
4 + structured process
4 + very nice people
4 + (so far) very good
experience as first-time
author
4 - authoring tools

10. About the book
4 introduction to reactive web-
app development
4 not another Play book, Play is
the underlying tool
4 Functional Programming,
Futures, Actors
4 practical tips & things to watch
out for when working with Play

11. Threaded servers
4 like a train station with
multiple tracks
4 station chief decides which
trains go on which platform
4 if there are more trains than
platforms, trains queue up
4 if too many trains are queuing
up, huge delays occur and
passengers go home

12. Evented servers
4 like a waiter in a restaurant
4 runs back and forth between
tables and the kitchen
4 does only small tasks that do
not take much time
4 one server can each serve
many tables at once

13. The End
Questions?