ProcessWire Book?

[Mark]

I know patience is a virtue.........but can I ask if you have a publication date in mind Matthew?   

[MatthewSchenker]

Greetings,

I understand! And I am eager to put it out there. But I also want to make sure the first rendition is strong so it can be a good start, since I expect to keep improving it beyond the initial release.

I promise to post here when I make progress.

Thanks,

Matthew

[Marco Angeli]

hey diogo!

While we're waiting for the official book, I must say your EPUB looks good!

Nice work.

[dazzyweb]

Any news on a processwire book?

Anyone still working on it?

[Sergio]

Any news on a processwire book?

Anyone still working on it?

@MatthewSchenker, how things are going with the book? Would you consider put it on LeanPub? Even if it's not finished, there you can see how many people are interested and receive feedback.  

I'm planning to write one book for absolute beginners, in Brazilian Portuguese and maybe in English (if I may be bold to write both at the same time) from a front end developer/designer point of view, so it will not compete directly with yours. 

[pwired]

I'm planning to write one book for absolute beginners,

This has been discussed before in the forum and what I remember from it is that this needs some strategy:

=> leaving out writing what is thought to be necessary and write what turned out to be needed.

The forum holds many repeating posts from beginners struggling with the need to think differently because

Processwire differs from most other cms'es out there: no front, everything "is a page" linked with "templates"

and fields and the ability to be both a cms and cmf. For a beginner there is just too much freedom to begin with.

Talking about beginners, you have to distinguish between processwire beginners who already know other cms systems and cms beginners. Then you have to reflect on being able to replace your self in a beginners mind set, because the more experienced and skilled you are, the more difficult that will be.

[Sergio]

This has been discussed before in the forum and what I remember from it is that this needs some strategy:

=> leaving out writing what is thought to be necessary and write what turned out to be needed.

The forum holds many repeating posts from beginners struggling with the need to think differently because

Processwire differs from most other cms'es out there: no front, everything "is a page" linked with "templates"

and fields and the ability to be both a cms and cmf. For a beginner there is just too much freedom to begin with.

Talking about beginners, you have to distinguish between processwire beginners who already know other cms systems and cms beginners. Then you have to reflect on being able to replace your self in a beginners mind set, because the more experienced and skilled you are, the more difficult that will be.

I fully agree. "For a beginner there is just too much freedom to begin with."  This is the best and the worse of PW when you are a beginner. That's where the book aims to help.

What I think is to write for absolute beginners on ProcessWire, not fully beginners. People that have developed at least one website using Wordpress or other CMS in the past. So they know how to handle at least some basic PHP of course.

I'm imagine the possible buyers/readers:

1. Project leaders/managers of small digital agencies that want to improve their speed on creating websites, reducing costs and problems (maybe caused by other CMS performance and security issues). He/she will buy the book (after they knew a little about PW of course here in the forums), read some pages, and give it to the developers and designers so they can learn the basics quick.

I was in this situation back in 2008, the agency had a CMS developed internally, a piece of crap, so I decided to get rid of. I made some research and decided to use Wordpress at the time. For us it was perfect, and for many companies it still is, we became a reference on Wordpress.

In the small agencies' market, usually there are two types of websites, one that is made to last for long time and needs to be well done and have the smaller cost of maintenance possible, and one that is more common, that is made to last for a only a couple months, because it is part of a campaign that will be off air soon. This is the one that needs to be the cheaper to develop.

2. People like ourselves, that were hooked by PW's web interface, API and so forth, that want to offers their freelance clients something easier to use and that has a better performance than Wordpress, Joomla, Modx etc. and just want to know how to start by reading a book (some people prefer to read a book than see videos or web tutorials)

---

The same project leader/manager I said earlier will also need to convince her/his boss to choose ProcessWire over other choices from a market stand point, this will not be as easy. Wordpress marketshare in Brazil is huge and a lot of people don't see a reason to change because they cannot see its problems and that there's something better available. This is now their fault, that's the way it is. Some people still use SharePoint to develop websites... 

There is a lot of developers who claim to know how to create a website using WP, so from a HR point of view, if the agency need to contract more developers, will easier to find ones that know Wordpress. This is understandable. 

---

Going further, and a little off topic if I may, I also have a client that asked me some questions and I don't have numbers to answer them emphatically. Questions like:

- How many big companies/websites use ProcessWire in the world. How is it compared to WP?

- If you die , how long it will take to find a new developer in the market that knows how to continuing working on my website? Will it not be quicker and less expensive to find one that knows Wordpress? 

- If the main developer (Ryan) dies, what happens to ProcessWire, will it be actively developed? How can you assure that?

[mr-fan]

on your questions:

1. Many -> http://processwire.com/about/sites/

2.a) Quick -> http://directory.processwire.com/developers/

   b) You'll may found faster a dev but like always in life quantity != quality

3. My personal thought is that a Main dev have to guarantee the quality of changes and build up the roadmap.....there are many contributors (not directly in the github 

    stats but in the issue discussions and as members https://github.com/ryancramerdesign/ProcessWire/network/members

    ->so only question would be left who or wich group will take over if there was a vacancy of a main dev......for shure there are many talented dev's that are involved...

For my thought on point 3 is - nobody can assure such things....this question is like a clients ask "You have to assure me that Wordpress has no security holes...!"

regards mr-fan

[teppo]

Just a few quick notes:

• The sites directory, or the developers directory, are our best bet at identifying sites, companies, and developers using ProessWire. On the other hand, these are a subset of the real figures – for an example, none of the sites our company has built using ProcessWire are listed there (that's a longer topic, not going there right now).

The truth is that we can't tell for sure just how widely ProcessWire is used, partly because it's built in a way that makes it possible to completely hide the fact that a given site is powered by ProcessWire. Which is a good thing, really. We do know that it's gaining momentum, and it's also quite safe to say that it's usage is nowhere near that of WordPress

• If, for any given reason, the lead developer had to step down, development would no doubt continue.

We've got plenty of capable folks around here. It's pointless to speculate whether that would lead to one or more forks and what else might or might not happen, but I'm confident that ProcessWire wouldn't go away that easily.

• Personally I've always found the question of "how do we find another developer for a project built with platform X" somewhat off.

First of all, this question completely ignores the fact that each system is different. ProcessWire is particularly easy to learn and understand, and unlike (apparently) with certain other platforms, there's no year-long learning period involved. A developer with basic knowledge of PHP and web development in general should be able to just step in without any major delays.

To be fair, this also applies to WordPress, and other even remotely sensible platforms. Building sites with a CMS/CMF is not rocket surgery, and while years of experience with given platform will give you an edge over someone less experienced with said platform (you already know some of the possible pitfalls and shortcuts), that's all there is to it. What's much more important is how a particular project has been developed so far.

Just like with any other platform out there, it's possible to build broken and overcomplicated crap with ProcessWire, while (and this is at least partly opinion-based) it's not as easy as with certain other platforms. The flexibility of ProcessWire means that even if the previous developer made some pretty horrible choices along the way, it should still be possible to salvage some parts and rewrite others.

In the end it's always better to just brace yourself and tell the client that the whole thing needs to be blown into pieces than attempt to forcefully breathe life into a project that's already rotten to it's core, regardless of which system it was built with.

[motionmindz]

Whats the status on the book, chaps?

[szabesz]

56 minutes ago, motionmindz said:

Whats the status on the book, chaps?

I think it is highly improbable that anyone has the time to write a book on PW in the near future, however, the docs are being updated, extended and reorganized by Ryan so it will probably be a good substitute for a book anyway (and free ? ). See: http://processwire.com/blog/posts/rebuilding-pw-website-part2/

[Gadgetto]

I'd definitely buy a ProcessWire book! eBook version should be included.