PragmaticBookshelf

PragmaticBookshelf

Devtalk Sponsor

Spotlight: Paolo Perrotta (Author)

“A Mystical Experience” Hero’s Journey
with Paolo Perrotta
@nusco

Ever wonder how authoring books compares to writing articles? More importantly, is making the switch from short-form to long-form worth the effort?

Discover how Paolo Perrotta went from writing short coding articles for programming magazines to authoring full-length technical books for The Pragmatic Bookshelf, and find out why he thinks that experience is not only rewarding but nothing short of mystical.

INTERVIEW

Listen to the complete audio interview here:

WIN!

We’re giving away one of Paolo’s books to one lucky winner! Simply post a comment or a question in his ask me anything (AMA) below, and the Devtalk bot will randomly pick a winner at a time of the author’s choosing … then automatically update this thread with the results!


TRANSCRIPT (abridged)

For those who prefer to read rather than listen, following are highlights from the interview.

On becoming an author…

While it may seem strange to hear coming from someone who’s accomplished so much, Paolo says he was “kind of blessed a little by not being really, really good at anything in particular.” Sure, he was a decent coder and a decent writer—mostly because he enjoyed doing it, but he wasn’t what he called “a no-brainer hire.”

Little did Paolo know, people like him—people who can both code and write—are rare and in high demand.

Paolo stepped into the role of author/programmer after responding to a forum post he found on the internet. The poster wanted to know if anyone knew a programmer who could write magazine articles about coding. Paolo, who was a freelancer at the time, certainly fit that profile.

This unassuming internet exchange set into motion Paolo’s journey to becoming an author.

After a few years of writing technical articles for print magazines, Paolo started thinking about writing a book. In his mind, if one article has enough content to fill three pages, then 100 articles could surely fill an entire book. He would later discover that writing a book was so much more than simply creating additional content, but, at the time, Paolo was blissfully unaware.

On challenges and rewards…

Paolo admits that his first book, Metaprogramming Ruby 2: Program Like the Ruby Pros, was a “pretty reckless” choice since he hadn’t considered all that goes into writing a book; but that didn’t stop him. He’d been reading about the topic on various blogs, and he liked the subject, so he wanted to write a book about it … but not just any book.

Paolo wanted to write the book that he wanted to read—the one he felt was missing from the Ruby space. And, since no such book existed, Paolo “naturally concluded,” as he says, to write the book himself.

But did Paolo really know enough about metaprogramming in Ruby to actually write a book?

As it turns out, he did … even if he had to do some research and take deeper dives into the topic before he felt fully ready to teach it. And that’s when Paolo made an interesting discovery.

Many of the techniques Paolo wanted to use didn’t have a name—a pattern-like description that people in the industry agreed upon and were using. Faced with this inconsistency, Paolo came up with the names on his own, an overly ambitious task for a first-time author.

In the end, Paolo’s ambition paid off. There wasn’t anything else like his book on the market, and it filled a much-needed void.

On career and beyond…

Although Paolo currently has no plans to write another book, he says the experience of writing two books with the Pragmatic Bookshelf led to some exciting adventures in his career, such as being a public speaker and world traveler.

But what Paolo enjoyed the most was working with a group of individuals who believed in fairness and partnership—and a company that understood how to build a toolset for programmers who like to write.


Now that you know his story, complete your collection of Paolo’s PragProg titles today! Don’t forget you can get 35% off with the coupon code devtalk.com!


Follow Paolo:

Twitter, x.com

Linkedin, https://www.linkedin.com/in/paoloperrotta

Medium, https://nusco.medium.com


YOUR TURN!

We’re now opening up the thread for your questions! Ask Paolo anything! Please keep it clean and don’t forget by participating you automatically enter the competition to win one of Paolo’s ebooks!!

Most Liked

nusco

nusco

Author of Metaprogramming Ruby & Programming Machine Learning

It was a joy to give this interview and reminisce about my first experience with the Pragmatic Bookshelf! :smiley:

Everybody: if you’re thinking about becoming a Pragmatic Bookshelf author, or you have any other questions–don’t hesitate to ask.

Paparazzigirl3

Paparazzigirl3

I want a book! I enjoyed Paolo’s class at Pluralsight and didn’t know he is a writer, an author. I’m also writing (a mystery novel ) + changing career to become a webdeveloper. Looking forward for more classes from Paolo, he is one of my fav teachers. Love his voice.

nusco

nusco

Author of Metaprogramming Ruby & Programming Machine Learning

Ahah, thank you, @Paparazzigirl3! And best wishes for your book and your new career. :smiley:

Popular Community topics Top

New
PragmaticBookshelf
A Hero’s Journey with Brian P. Hogan @bphogan Brian P. Hogan, author of Build Websites with Hugo, discusses his journey to becom...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight: Karl Stolley @karlstolley Logic! Rhetoric! Prag! Wow, what a combination. In this spotlight, we sit down with Karl ...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight: Johanna Rothman @jrothman Writing is a craft and Johanna Rothman is an expert. Today we talked about the art of wri...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
Author Spotlight: Peter Ullrich @PJUllrich Data is at the core of every business, but it is useless if nobody can access and analyze ...
New
New
Margaret
Ask Me Anything with Ashley Peacock @ashleypeacock On February 27 and 28, we are giving you a chance to ask questions of PragProg aut...
New
Margaret
Ask Me Anything with Ellie Fairholm and Josep Giralt D’Lacoste @elliefairholm and @Gilacost On February 24 and 25, we are giving you ...
New
Margaret
Ask Me Anything with Mark Volkmann @mvolkmann On February 24 and 25, we are giving you a chance to ask questions of PragProg author M...
New
Margaret
Native Mobile Development in Rails with Joe Masilotti @joemasilotti Building fully native iOS and Android apps can be comp...
New

Other popular topics Top

AstonJ
A thread that every forum needs! Simply post a link to a track on YouTube (or SoundCloud or Vimeo amongst others!) on a separate line an...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
A PragProg Hero’s Journey with Brian P. Hogan @bphogan Have you ever worried that your only legacy will be in the form of legacy...
New
AstonJ
Or looking forward to? :nerd_face:
New
Exadra37
I am thinking in building or buy a desktop computer for programing, both professionally and on my free time, and my choice of OS is Linux...
New
AstonJ
SpaceVim seems to be gaining in features and popularity and I just wondered how it compares with SpaceMacs in 2020 - anyone have any thou...
New
Exadra37
I am a Linux user since 2012, more or less, and I always use Ubuntu on my computers, and my last 2 laptops have been used Thinkpads, wher...
New
PragmaticBookshelf
“Finding the Boundaries” Hero’s Journey with Noel Rappin @noelrappin Even when you’re ultimately right about what the future ho...
New
AstonJ
Saw this on TikTok of all places! :lol: Anyone heard of them before? Lite:
New
First poster: joeb
The File System Access API with Origin Private File System. WebKit supports new API that makes it possible for web apps to create, open,...
New
AstonJ
If you’re getting errors like this: psql: error: connection to server on socket “/tmp/.s.PGSQL.5432” failed: No such file or directory ...
New