the Book of Shen is complete
Mark Tarver
FPQi and adds 100 pages of new material making TBoS 50 pages shorter
than FPQi. The table of contents with the new material in red is here
http://www.shenlanguage.org/contents.pdf
The main goal of TBoS is to provide a definitive language standard and
a clear exposition of Shen.
A few words on the changes.
Section IV in FPQi (Models of Reasoning) of about 65 pages has gone
mainly because this section was based on rule abstractions which are
not present in Shen. I dropped rule abstractions because though they
are powerful they are not type secure (see http://www.lambdassociates.org/Book/page328.htm).
There is a new chapter (15) in TBoS on building a proof assistant
which explores tactics and tacticals in Shen and shows how to build
type secure proofs in the manner of the Edinburgh LCF.
Also gone is
* chapter 12 on abstract programming. I feel chapter 15 is more
useful.
* the whist program of chapter 11 which used the random function which
is not part of Shen
* chapter 8 on metaprogramming using eval; Shen uses macros
* the fruit machine program of chapter 2 which uses 'random'
* the section on compiling the AUM to Lisp
* Appendix B Installing and Using Qi under Lisp
* the Qi license
New material includes
* a section on how Shen developed from Qi
* a history program to replace the fruit machine program of chapter 2
* a short section on numbers in Shen
* a chapter on strings
* a chapter on assignments
* a chapter on vectors
* a chapter on I/O including streams
* a section on exception handling
* a chapter on macros and packages
* a chapter on computer-based proof
* a section on KLambda and Lambda Calculus
* a section on compiling to Klambda
* a section on compiling choice points
* a section on compiling AUM to Shen
* a section on compiling the Prolog cut
* a rewritten table of functions
* an improved BNF for Shen
* a rewritten appendix on Shen Prolog
* the Shen license
I have to arrange publication which will take a time. Please do not
argue/ask for free electronic copies because as an author this does
piss me off. If you want it, buy it. Price is about £25-30. I may
not use Fastprint for this because their new terms are not attractive
(12% for the author). If so I may print it locally and distribute it
myself. In that case people can opt for a signed copy if they want.
Mark
Pierpaolo Bernardi
> If so I may print it locally and distribute it
> myself. In that case people can opt for a signed copy if they want.
Congrats!
Whatever the choice of printing, could you try to make it distributed by Amazon?
Their logistics seems to be the only one capable of reliably
delivering things to me.
Cheers
P.
Mark Tarver
seperate; the most reliable is registered post which is also the most
expensive. If you say £5 for handling and packaging and £5 for
mailing with delivery within 5 days this is about right. By
registered mail it is about £10 for delivery. I'm only going to do
one form of mailing if I do it myself.
Mark
On Apr 19, 9:02 am, Pierpaolo Bernardi <olopie...@gmail.com> wrote:
Mark Tarver
supply them. This gives me about 25%. Not a good deal.
h...@ancell-ent.com
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:02:43 +0200
On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 09:41, Mark Tarver <dr.mt...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If so I may print it locally and distribute it
> myself. In that case people can opt for a signed copy if they want.
Congrats!
Whatever the choice of printing, could you try to make it distributed by Amazon?
The problem with Amazon and Print On Demand is that in 2008 they changed
their business model to essentially require you to use their own POD company
(then BookSurge, now https://www.createspace.com/ ) ... and the quality of
their physical printing is frequently not great, a problem which persists to this
day. This is not a surprise, since they've essentially created their own monopoly.
You can use other POD companies, but then Amazon treats your book like a
red headed stepchild, or in some cases those companies have an arrangement
with Amazon where both they and Amazon will be printing your books, and
copies by latter have the same printing quality issues (perhaps cheaper paper,
lower quality and sometimes sloppy bindings, worse reproduction of the cover,
and see below for print quality).
For the Book of Shen, where the content is what matters and it doesn't have
any pictures, and the cover quality doesn't particularly matter (although the
Qi book's cover is very nice indeed), the big issue would be that the glyphs
(characters) as printed by Amazon aren't as dark as is normal or in the copy
of the Qi book I have, based on my own personal observations. Still readable
(for most people, at least), but again, they're cutting corners and the quality
isn't as good as you can get elsewhere.
But this option would allow for mass distribution without the day to day
demands if you're e.g. shipping out the books yourself. And Amazon will
ship copies quickly (well, at least in the US; not sure about the U.K. and
elsewhere, I did see one complaint about the cost of getting printed
proofs to the U.K.).
- Harold
Mark Tarver
Mark
On Apr 19, 1:17 pm, h...@ancell-ent.com wrote:
> From: Pierpaolo Bernardi <olopie...@gmail.com>
>
>
> > If so I may print it locally and distribute it
> > myself. In that case people can opt for a signed copy if they want.
>
> Congrats!
>
> Whatever the choice of printing, could you try to make it distributed by Amazon?
>
> The problem with Amazon and Print On Demand is that in 2008 they changed
> their business model to essentially require you to use their own POD company
h...@ancell-ent.com
Subject: Re: the Book of Shen is complete
Amazon takes 55% of the list price for themselves and you have to
supply them. This gives me about 25%. Not a good deal.
Unless you use Create Space. Based on their calculator (which does
not produce guaranteed pricing), printing the current Qi book (the
form factor and number of pages) would give you 44% of the list
price, and I read elsewhere (so take it with a grain of salt) that any
discounting Amazon might do would come out of their 56% in this
case (40% Amazon.com distribution + 16% in fixed costs for a book
440 pages long). You'd get higher royalties from your Create Space
eStore (which you could incorporate in the Shen web site), and from
what I've read the printing quality is higher as well.
- Harold
h...@ancell-ent.com
Subject: Re: the Book of Shen is complete
Vide my remarks on Amazon's prices.
Not if you were to use Create Space, in which case
they or Amazon would be providing the printed books.
Note, the calculation I made in my previous posting was
based on converting the current list price in pounds to
34.24 US$ as I recall based on the current conversion
that Yahoo Finance provides. That matters because
there's a 0.85 US$ cost for a book of that length plus
0.012 US$ cost per page, which is almost 16% of the
list price I used.
Hmmm, here's one other reason to get your book into
the Amazon system: get some good reviews and that will
help sell the book and Shen.
- Harold
Håkan Råberg
jgrant27
Johannes Engels
As already Joel Shellman wrote in his post from April 4, I am also
ready to pay in advance for the book if their is some intermediate
electronic access, and I am also ready for proof-reading if desired.
Best regards
Johannes
Mark Tarver
publishing all take time.
Mark
On Apr 20, 3:34 pm, Johannes Engels <johannes.eng...@hft-stuttgart.de>
wrote:
w.r...@ntlworld.com
Mark Tarver
racketnoob
On Saturday, May 5, 2012 6:18:30 PM UTC+2, Mark Tarver wrote:
Anybody who can find any technical support numbers etc, please mail.
Mark Tarver
requires an ID number even though it is not listed as a mandatory
field. The request has gone off now.
Mark
Mark Tarver
OK; looks like the format is OK. Just proof reading left.
__________________________________________
Hello Mark,
Thank you for contacting us with regards to your interior issues.
Interior Reviewer will alert you if any text, images, or line art
extend into the margins and need to be corrected. Margins are required
to ensure that all information is visible once your book is printed
and bound and that the user’s reading experience is unhindered. A
margin of 0.25” is required on the three outside edges of each page.
The inside edge of the book – the side where the book is bound – is
known as the “gutter margin,” and will vary based on the number of
pages in the book.
Please note that the reviewer tool is automated and that it picks up
the slightest error, however the issues picked up were only for text
boxes which slightly crept over the margins. If you are happy with
your interior then please select skip interior reviewer to proceed.
I hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to contact us if
you have any additional questions or concerns.
Mark Tarver
multitudinous small corrections. He is 90 pages in and I will give
him the time to read all of it.
Mark
Mark Tarver
After that, the second proof reading will be done.
Mark
Mark Tarver
Mark
Mark Tarver
Mark
On Dec 28, 3:03 am, Anton Vodonosov <avodono...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The web site says the book is sold out -http://www.shenlanguage.org/tbos.html
>
> Any plans to publish more copies?
Mark Tarver
Mark
On 5 Jan, 02:42, Charles McKnight <chuckmckni...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Mark,
>
> Just looking for the Book of Shen. Any luck with finding a publisher yet?
> If not, have you checked with lulu.com?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Chuck
>
>
> On Thursday, April 19, 2012 12:41:37 AM UTC-7, Mark Tarver wrote:
>