Textpattern Solutions
As can be seen clearly in the following photo, my dad not only wholeheartedly endorses Textpattern, but its use on personal computers as well…
I figure since the rest of my fellow co-authors (Cody, Kevin, Mary and Rob) have already written up their posts about the book release, I should make it "official" on my blog too. Textpattern Solutions was published on May 21st, and has recently made its way to bookstores around the USA (with other countries soon to follow). The book, appropriately titled, covers the flexible open source content management system Textpattern.
In the esprit de corps of open source community, I will be giving half of whatever money I make from the book sales (yet to be seen) right back to the core Textpattern developers. I figure, if not for their hard work, the CMS wouldn't even exist and the book would never have been written. I simply consider myself a beneficiary of their tireless (oft unsung) labor.
Overall, Textpattern Solutions has been well received. There have been a few reviews written on Amazon (4.5 of 5.0 rating). So far, my favorite snippet of feedback about the book has come from Nils Valentin.
"The Textpattern software package is what the Germans would call a 'Eierlegende Wollmilchsau — a sheep that gives also milk, eggs and meat.' It seems like you can make it do almost anything you can come up with."
Courtesy of my wife, who is fluent in Russian, I was also able to hear what the TXP users over at Textpattern.ru have been saying. In short, they like it but think the book cover conveys the message: "Without a bottle of vodka and a hammer, there's no way to crack this book." Fair enough, everyone's entitled to their opinion. I'd like to think it's a little more approachable!
If you know of any other book reviews, we'd love to hear about them. Needless to say, if you like the book and write your own review, let us know. I'm trying to keep track, adding snippets and links to the official book site.
textpatternsolutions.com/book-reviews
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that there's a free PDF download of Chapter 14, Writing Plugins. It was written by Rob Sable, a name in the TXP community that is synonymous with extending and enhancing Textpattern. He is a PHP guru, 'nuff said. I use several of his plugins on my own site.
I just want to say it was a honor and privledge to write with the other authors: Mary Fredborg, Cody Lindley, Kevin Potts and Rob Sable. Special thanks to Dean Allen for creating Textpattern in the first place, Alex Shiels for being the lead TXP developer, and to Jon Hicks for writing a nice forward.