Head First Triathlon Part 3

Here's the third and final leg of the Head First Triathlon (Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2). This time the question for you is simple:

Who are you writing for?

One of the biggest things you need to think about is your particular audience. It's easy to say, "Oh, I'm writing for people who want to learn PHP & MySQL." But what does that really mean? Pick a topic you think you could actually write a Head First book about (and one that could be successful—check out this page for topics we're particularly interested in). Then send us your answers to these questions:

1. Is your book aimed at a specific technology/discipline, or at a concept?

If you're writing Head First Algebra or Head First XML, you've got a very specific technology set. You get to assume that if you teach that technology, you've done your primary job. And, even better, people come to your book wanting to learn that technology. But what if you’re teaching Head First Software Development or Head First Intro to Programming? Now, you've got multiple technology expectations. Which one will you use? And what level of proficiency do you expect?

2. Based on that, who is your audience?

If you were backed into a tight corner, and told you had to define your book's audience in two sentences or less, what would you say? Would you stutter or murmur something about, "Everyone who wants to program?" If so, this is your chance to get ahead of the game. Think about a very specific audience description, like, "Web designers who want to add scripting, but are intimidated by languages like JavaScript and Flash," or "College students who avoided taking math in high school, and now have to pass Algebra I to get their degree."

Be specific! The better you know your audience, the better you can write the book that they need.

So now you know who you're writing for. But what do they need to know? Not everything... that's what reference books are for. What are the key things you
need to get across to your learners? Come up with between 8 and 12 really important topics. Then, for each one, write a single sentence explaining why they need to learn that topic—why, if your learner didn't know this, it would be a total catastrophe. (We mean this part. If your learner could get by without the topic, why are you using valuable pages to teach it?)

That's it! Remember to send your answers to us at contest@headfirstlabs.com. Good luck!

Posted by Caitrin McCullough on Tuesday, May 6 Permalink | Comments (0)

Head First Triathlon Part 2

It's time for leg 2 of the Head First Triathlon (Click here for Part 1). Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to do a little reconnaissance on your favorite Head First books and research how some of our trademark learning elements are used. You'll need to puzzle out the purpose of a few of our most frequently used elements and explain the role they play in the learning process. Here are a few examples:

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This is Skeptical Girl. She’s that kid in class who’s just a little behind... but always thinks that she’s a little ahead. Learners almost always identify with Skeptical Girl at some point in a book, and she often asks that question that’s on all our minds... even if it means we really aren’t seeing an important part of the big picture.

Even better, Skeptical Girl can be wrong without us being wrong. She stands in for the learner when you need to get that not-so-obvious point across, without embarrassing your learner
for thinking about something incorrectly.

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It’s not enough to simply ask the learner to do something... you have to try and make them do something. Add a space for learners to write their answers, draw some blanks for them to write
in, even give a few handwritten sample answers... these are key in getting a learner to pick up their pencil (or pen) and actually WRITE IN THE BOOK.

If your learner isn’t engaged and participating, their learning experience won’t be as effective. Get the learner involved!

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Now it's your turn! Click through for some Head First elements to discuss. Send us an email with what you think the purpose of each of the elements is. How does the it help in learning? Is it only used in certain situations?

Continue reading "Head First Triathlon Part 2" »

Posted by Caitrin McCullough on Friday, Apr 25 Permalink | Comments (0)

Welcome to the Head First Triathlon

For a while now, we've been taking submissions for titles you think we should publish. But to put out great titles, we need great authors... and even though you don't know it, you may be just the Head First author we're looking for. Over the next few weeks, we're going to challenge you to take part in a Head First triathlon.

For now, don't worry about if you really would write an entire book, or get stressed out about contracts or anything like that. Just work through the exercises on the next few pages. Even if you're not interested in authoring, you'll learn more about what makes Head First unique, and how we've been making Head First unique. So without further ado...

It's not a popularity contest

We want people to like us. We want people to love us. Heck, we want people to wear us out, and write on us, and kiss on us in front of their significant others... well, maybe not us, but at least our books. But how do we do that? What makes people so crazy about Head First books? It's time for you to start figuring that out for yourself.

 

Open up your favorite web browser, and surf on over to Amazon.com. Your job is to read 5 or 10 customer reviews for several Head First books, and then read the reviews for books that compete with the Head First series. What's different about the Head First reviews? Are there some common elements to the reviews for Head First books? Click on the Exercise icon to get to the rest of this post, and we'll tell you what you need to do...

Continue reading "Welcome to the Head First Triathlon" »

Posted by Caitrin McCullough on Thursday, Apr 17 Permalink | Comments (1)

Aiming for 'cartoon code' first

In these days of high tempo projects and agile practices we're seeing a resurgence of interest in the craft of writing great and beautiful code. There are right now whole online areas dedicated to the pursuit and recognition of these examples of great code, and I for one honestly think that's a really great thing.

However, it hasn't always been the case. It wasn't that long ago that the emphasis was on complex modeling tools and heavy, front-end biased processes that shuffled code development to the tail end of a project. This was supposed to result in much more successful software projects and, let's be honest, it didn't. (Click on the image below for a larger version.)

So I see this resurgence of code as being a first class citizen in software development as being a good thing. After all, in the end it's the code that does the job and no matter how many documents you've produced, it's the code and the design decisions it embodies that helps to make your software is a success.

However this post is not about beautiful code. You see, beauty is only half the story. I prefer my code, even the uglier examples, to be first and foremost readable. That's what this post is all about, and I call it "cartoon code."

Continue reading "Aiming for 'cartoon code' first" »

Posted by Russell Miles on Monday, Apr 7 Permalink | Comments (6)

How can we make it easier for you?

 

Head First books cover a lot of ground. We take you from someone who may have never seen the technology in question before to someone who can actually do something real (and cool!) with it. You can build a real web site at the end of Head First HTML, you can code an entire arcade game at the end of Head First C#, and so on.

At the same time, because we know how your brain works, we don't try to cover everything. You don't need to know every obscure JavaScript method before you can code a blog site, and you don't need to know every design pattern before you can start using them. More importantly, if you bothered memorizing all of them you wouldn't have enough brain energy left for the good stuff! We know you're smart—you can find the references you need. What's important is teaching you how to use them once you find them.

But sometimes you need to know something before you get started, and we don't tell you. Either because a lot of our readers probably already know, and we don't want to bore them, or because the material would span a lot of our books and it seems like cheating if we just copy it over and over again. Things like:

Continue reading "How can we make it easier for you?" »

Posted by Caitrin McCullough on Monday, Mar 31 Permalink | Comments (20)