I don't mean to be rude, but the quality of some coding books is not good at all. The majority are rehashes of online documentation on what the function does with barely any examples on "real world application" and could easily be found online for free. I've seen enough chapters on how NumPy arrays work to completely disregard them. As an example, I recently picked up a book on Python for Civil Engineering because I was looking for said "real world" examples for a course I was teaching. In total, there are 6 civil engineering examples across the 160 pages and each needs ALL the basic concepts before you see them (although one is just "here's how matplotlib works").
If you choose to self-publish, please have more than the bare minimum in examples. Take a page out of Miguel Grinberg's Flask Tutorial [1] and have the entire book build up to something. If you're doing something like how to do Data Science with language X, use some larger scale datasets, walk through them, and explain what you are seeing beyond "here's the print statement's output".
Most of the videos on my YouTube channel that are about "How to use X in Y" get minimal views, because they're so simple that you only need to see it once via a video or webpage to "get it". However, some of my more popular videos are where I implement algorithms like the Luhn Check algorithm. Have that kind of material in your book.
You're correct that the quality of programming books is all over the map. Some of them are really bad, and are essentially rehashed SO answers sandwiched between some prosaic filler.
There are essentially two kinds of tech books:
1/ Thorough, in-depth technical discussions of programming languages, software, or apps that dive deep enough to enlighten the reader on how they work under the hood
2/ Rehashes of already existing docs, the latter of which do the job more directly without forcing you to read filler text. These books are primarily written to boost the author's reputation
Obviously, you should learn to be selective and buy only the #1 type of book. It's not hard to figure out what kind of book it is from looking at the TOC and remembering the type of books you've read from the same publisher.
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Honestly? Please don't.
I don't mean to be rude, but the quality of some coding books is not good at all. The majority are rehashes of online documentation on what the function does with barely any examples on "real world application" and could easily be found online for free. I've seen enough chapters on how NumPy arrays work to completely disregard them. As an example, I recently picked up a book on Python for Civil Engineering because I was looking for said "real world" examples for a course I was teaching. In total, there are 6 civil engineering examples across the 160 pages and each needs ALL the basic concepts before you see them (although one is just "here's how matplotlib works").
If you choose to self-publish, please have more than the bare minimum in examples. Take a page out of Miguel Grinberg's Flask Tutorial [1] and have the entire book build up to something. If you're doing something like how to do Data Science with language X, use some larger scale datasets, walk through them, and explain what you are seeing beyond "here's the print statement's output".
Most of the videos on my YouTube channel that are about "How to use X in Y" get minimal views, because they're so simple that you only need to see it once via a video or webpage to "get it". However, some of my more popular videos are where I implement algorithms like the Luhn Check algorithm. Have that kind of material in your book.
[1] https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial...
You're correct that the quality of programming books is all over the map. Some of them are really bad, and are essentially rehashed SO answers sandwiched between some prosaic filler.
There are essentially two kinds of tech books:
1/ Thorough, in-depth technical discussions of programming languages, software, or apps that dive deep enough to enlighten the reader on how they work under the hood
2/ Rehashes of already existing docs, the latter of which do the job more directly without forcing you to read filler text. These books are primarily written to boost the author's reputation
Obviously, you should learn to be selective and buy only the #1 type of book. It's not hard to figure out what kind of book it is from looking at the TOC and remembering the type of books you've read from the same publisher.